


The Moor-Watcher's Eyes

by sybilius, tartpants



Series: Black Beats and Low Leads [3]
Category: Death Note, Death Note: Another Note
Genre: Brooklyn, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Fairy tale tone, Forest Adventures, Friendship, Gen, Minor Violence, Minors with Guns, Murder, Mystery, New York City, New York Gangs, Roleplay to Fic, Shinigami Eyes, backstory fic, car theft, noir, original character death, times square, wammy's house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-08-22 14:45:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 52,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8289569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartpants/pseuds/tartpants
Summary: Ten year old detective L Lawliet encounters one of the most significant mysteries of his life when he meets Beyond Birthday, a runaway who can see the names and death dates of every human he comes across.





	1. December 18-19, 1989

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the third installment from 'Black Beats and Low Leads', an artifact-based roleplay and collaborative storytelling project about the World's Greatest Detective and his allies. This is the first of the beat one arcs, thus it is not necessary to read the other beats in order to understand the events of this story. 
> 
> 'Black Beats and Low Leads' takes place in three arcs-- this story takes place in December 1989, just before Beyond and Lawliet meet for the first time in the London winter.
> 
> If you wish to keep up with 'Black Beats and Low Leads' in real time, the player blogs can be found on tumblr, and the roleplay organized in the "beats log". At the end of a beat, the writing and artifacts will be compiled into a chapters/stories such as this one.
> 
> L: lowlawliet.tumblr.com (written by Tartpants)  
> B: noirberryjam.tumblr.com (written by Sybilius)
> 
> Hope you enjoy this story, and please leave a comment with your thoughts!

_L's Christmas List, [do not edit or repost]_

* * *

**December 18-19, 1989**

The backpack he can afford is bright pink with polka dots, cheap polyester blend, and the last of its kind. The coins feel heavy, clutched in his sweaty palm. Beyond Birthday hands them over, ignoring the way the clerk raises an eyebrow.

“S’for my sister.” he lies, trying not to look at the way red and blue flicker and flash at the man’s skin. _Just keep it together._  

It’s not a good date. Too close to a very bad date. The groceries are heavy on Beyond’s back, the oversized bomber jacket from a boy at least six years older than him, god knows how many years dead, clinging to him with London’s December rain. His boots are letting in a little too much water, but at least his fingers are warm in the new pair of red-knitted mittens.

He knocks on the door, just as he has for the past month or so, and waits a few minutes under the awning for the same scene to play itself out. A frail, wizened old woman opens the door slowly, her eyes squinting for a moment, before some memory fills in the gaps of what she sees.

“Robert,” Marla embraces him as if she hasn’t seen him in years, rather than hours, “You’ve been so long out to play, love? Why didn’t you come home for dinner last night?”

She always asks the same thing, even though Beyond has sat at her table yesterday, the day before, eating rice pudding in the seat of a ghost. Sometimes, he swears he sees him, peering out from the corners. The boy whose photographs are on the mantle, age 10, age 16, military dress. They look a little alike. A little. 

Marla tears up again when he produces the carnation from his bag, and he plays the part well over dinner. It’s not so bad. Even the ghost at the door smiles a little, though Marla’s dinners always consist of creamed corn, ham, toast. _It’s warm though, it’s a place to stay. I’ve got to find another one soon, or the cold will get me. Gotta find shelter._

 _But I can’t stay here. Not when she’s gonna die. Not when I might–_  He coughs slightly on the rice pudding.

“Go down alright, dear?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” Beyond makes up stories about school friends, stories about learning about ships based on what he’s seen and knows. It’s nice. It’s nice to pretend, though he can see the date above her name with every bite he swallows. 

_Marla Porter. December 20, 1989._

The next day, he packs his pink polyester backpack, with what’s left of what was underneath the old woman’s mattress, and whatever else might help his chances out there. 

“Where are you going, Robert?”

“School.”

“It’s Saturday, though!” It was, in fact, a Wednesday.

“Look I’m just going out for a bit, okay?” 

She tuts to herself, “Well, if you must go out to play. Won’t you give your mother a kiss?”

Beyond swallows, “Alright.” and kisses the paper-thin wrinkles on her cheek for the last time. _Sorry I’m not him. Sorry you had to–_  

“You’ll be home for dinner, won’t you?” she says, and the memory of a murder he doesn’t quite remember flashes through his eyes. He flinches, hard, but she doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Yeah.” B shoulders the pink backpack, now loaded down with jam, bit of bread, bit of fruit, and whatever was in the cupboard that could keep, “Bye.”

“Stay safe, honey!”

The air has dropped several degrees from yesterday, and though clouds are gathered in a grey soup above him, it hasn’t started raining yet. _Small fucking mercies_. Beyond Birthday exhales, and steps out on to the pavement. 

* * *

 

_Beyond's Shopping list [do not edit or repost]_

* * *

 

**December 19, 1989**

Given that there’s a growing layer of mushy sleet on the streets of London, L is satisfied that he chose to wear his wellies on this third trip into the city for Christmas shopping. He doesn’t like how they squeak when he walks, making it impossible to mask his presence, but they do a bang-up job of keeping his feet warm and dry.

Even as small as L is, it had been a challenge to squeeze past the crowd that had gathered to take in Harrod’s Christmas display windows. The nearest display – which he managed to stare at for a few minutes before being out-sized by the adults around him – was a magical forest glittering with white lights, nimble sprites bedecking the trees with ribbons and colorful sweets.

 _Lollipops tied to the branches with white ribbon_ , L thinks just as he’s swept away from the view. _That’s just what the tree in the saloon ought to have._

“Would you like me to take your coat, Lars?” Wammy asks when they’re fully enveloped in the toasty air of the department store. Every room and aisle is bustling with shoppers and tourists, and L lets Wammy take his coat for the time being, knowing he’ll soon grow too warm in such an atmosphere. 

“Can we go to the top and work our way down?” L asks, already making his way toward the escalators. Wammy allows him to lead the way, holding both of their coats with that sort of fussy precision that occasionally gets him mistaken for L’s manservant – or would, if L looked at all like a posh child and not a slightly rumpled one in need of a haircut.

During the ride up to the fifth floor, L consults his Christmas list again. He takes gift-shopping seriously, and prides himself on giving each kid at Wammy’s the gift most suited to them, based on careful observation and calculation. Sasha hadn’t even asked for a tea set, but L had seen her re-read _The Secret Garden_ enough times to know that she was fascinated with Victorian propriety and rituals. And Roger heavily favored navy polo necks in winter, but perhaps didn’t realize that his cold-weather dandruff left behind a startling, snowy landscape on the dark fabric. 

“Fifth floor is casual menswear,” L observes to Wammy as he hops off the final escalator. “We can get Roger’s gift, then go down to the third floor for Toy Kingdom.“ 

“And where will we finish?” Wammy’s lips quirk a little behind his mustache. “The Chocolate Cafe or the Ice Cream Parlour?“ 

He knows all too well that L wouldn’t dream of leaving Harrod’s without visiting or or the other. Or both.

* * *

 

The sky opens up in early afternoon, by the time Beyond has trekked to the heart of London. The pack is already feeling too heavy, and his boots are soaked through with sleet. He rounds the edge of Brompton road, invisible amongst the bustling tourists. _Guess I can get out of the cold for a bit, s’long as people don’t notice me._

Beyond isn’t stupid. He knows people like Marla, _people like me_ , he corrects, are few and far between. _There’s no fucking way I’m going to an orphanage._  They’d start asking questions. They’d want to know where he was from. They’d find out who he was, what he was, and what he did.

Beyond bites his lip to that thought, jumping away from the grotesque mask-faces of the crowd. He lets the current carry him into Harrod’s. While he’s still presentable he makes his way up to the third floor, the flickering lights calming him with the fact that these, in fact, are not something his eyes invent. While keeping his eyes on a glittering blue and white tree, he bumps straight into a well-dressed, middle-aged man, carrying several bags of purchase. 

“Sorry, young sir,” the man has greying temples and a mustache that grows underneath his smile. He smiles like Marla. Beyond sees her face flicker once over his, and perhaps stares a bit too long, “Are you lost?”

“Yeah,” he says it with a touch of unsureness, then gathers the lie in his mind, “I was supposed to go with my parents for lunch, but I don’t know where they went, so I just came here. I don’t know if they’ll be able to find me!” 

He lets breathy panic into his voice, and the urgency hits the old man, _Quillsh Wammy_ , in the way his eyes soften. _Good. If I’m lucky I can get a meal out of this, maybe even a warm night’s sleep. One day at a time._ Before Beyond opens his mouth. There’s a boy behind the old man, mop of messy, dark hair, whose just coming off of talking to the shop girl. 

“This one with the flower pattern will do, Wammy.” the boy, _obviously some kind of rich kid,_ hands the gift slip to the old man. _L Lawliet_. Beyond reads the red letters with a slight smile on his lips, _the hell kind of name is L Lawliet?_

* * *

 

At first, L assumes that the boy talking to Wammy is lost. It happens often enough in a store as large as Harrod’s, especially when it’s as crowded as it is today. Wammy must assume that he’s lost, too, if the helpful, expectant expression on his face is any indication. 

L’s eyes quickly take in the boy’s appearance and puts together an altogether different story. His jacket is far too large, definitely second-hand, and the pink backpack he wears looks heavy. L is surprised that the shop security actually let him wander around wearing it. His gaze travels sharp from the top of the boy’s curly head down to his worn shoes, and only when he glances back up does he see that the boy is looking at him just as sharply. Their eyes meet and L instantly slumps a little, lets his features go slack.  

“Hullo,” L says quietly.

“Hello,” the boy says back, the accent strained and nasal in the back of his throat. It sounds like something from the movies. _New York?_

“Good, Lars, you’re back.” Wammy shifts his packages and looks down at L. “I’ve just bumped into this young man who’s been separated from his parents.” 

“What terrible luck.” L looks at the boy without blinking.

“Indeed. Now that we’ve finished shopping, perhaps we ought to take tea at one of the other restaurants.” Wammy gives the boy a generous smile. “Would you care to join us while you wait for your parents?” 

“Oh, yes sir!” the boy says, his smile big enough to make the corners of his eyes crinkle. 

L’s fingers twitch a little at his sides. The smile looks real, not faked.

“I’m Lars, and he’s Mr Wammy,” L says, shuffling from foot to foot. “We’re up from Winchester for the day. You must be on holiday with your parents?”

“Mmhm.” The boy gives a vigorous nod, but his smile stiffens. 

 _A liar, then_. L knows how to spot his own kind. 

* * *

 

Beyond shifts uncomfortably in his seat at the Georgian tea house. The whole thing feels like a big mistake, under Lars _Lawliet’s_ wide and watchful slump, Mr. Wammy with his straight backed smile, taking tea from bone china and pastries off of silver platters. He smiles and asks Beyond questions about America, but Beyond didn’t miss the cash he slipped the maitre ‘d when they were let in. _I don’t belong with these people_.

Which is a shame really, considering both Mr. Wammy and L Lawliet would live a hell of a lot longer than anyone he’d stayed with before. _And isn’t that just how it is?_ Beyond tries to be civil when reaching for the scones and jam, but gets a quizzical look from L Lawliet when he spoons a jar’s worth of jam onto his pastry.

_Look, we can’t all stuff our faces with eclairs every day of the week._

He takes a nibble of the scone and is unable to stop the slight moan that comes out of his lips, “I didn’t know they could make jam this good!”

Wammy chuckles, “It is world famous.”

Lawliet laughs too, and it’s a nice sound. Not as unkind as Beyond was expecting. Beyond doesn’t particularly like the way he stares, like he’s trying to unravel his thoughts from the outside in. _He’s suspicious of me. Probably thinks he knows everything._

Beyond leans in, knowing his usual way for dealing with rich bullies. _Freak ‘em out a bit. It’s not like I can stay with fancy-pants here_. “So is Lars some kind of fancy nickname for L? I’m guessing he’s your butler or something, considering he’s not Mr. _Lawliet_.”

* * *

 

Halfway through tea L decides that the boy – who has the absurd name Beyond Birthday, no less – might not be a thief even if he’s _definitely_ a runaway. Wammy knows it too, even if his warm, smiling eyes give nothing away. That’s fine; if the kid truly has no home to go to then there will be room for him at the school. He can share a room with Harold, or maybe Barrett. Barrett was a runaway when he came to Wammy’s House, too. 

But Barrett, at least, knows enough of the world to know that you don’t take all of the strawberry jam for yourself. L hides a frown and makes do with the lemon curd.

_“So is Lars some kind of fancy nickname for L?”_

The words burn in L’s ear and he abruptly stops squeaking his wellies together beneath the table. His eyes flick to Wammy to see if he’s overheard, but he’s distracted by an old friend who’s come to the table for small talk. 

“I’m guessing he’s your butler or something, considering he’s not Mr  _Lawliet_.” The boy named Beyond smirks, his eyes glittering with something that could be malice or humor, and L’s brain swims with possibilities, each one less pleasant than the one that came before it. 

 _How could he know? Maybe one of those knobs at Scotland Yard that’s been fired sent him?_  He quickly evaluates Beyond’s features. _He can’t be much older than I am, if he is at all. Maybe revenge for the Chapman case?_

L’s pale fingers dance over his plate, picking up his butter knife first, then his fork. Yes, fork. He slips it beneath the crisp white linen tablecloth and presses it hard against the bony length of Beyond’s thigh, his face blank as he leans in to whisper “Who sent you? And who do you work for?”

Beyond’s eyes widen to saucers. Whatever reaction he expected from L, it wasn’t this, that much L can plainly see. He jerks the fork away at once and stares openly, suddenly far more intrigued than suspicious. 

“Almost no one knows my real name,” he says softly. “How’d you sort it out?”

* * *

 

Lawliet’s slump goes from harmless to lethal in less than a second, the hard whisper matching the way the fork digs into Beyond’s thigh. His heart kicks up to a mile-a-minute, and the room takes on an ugly hue. And then it’s gone, and Lawliet is appraising him with something that looks like curiosity. 

_“Almost no one knows my real name. How’d you sort it out?”_

“I don’t work for anyone, okay? It’s just me. I see people’s names– like above their faces,” Beyond’s heart is beating too fast to lie, and besides, no one believes him about this anyways. 

_Who is this kid? He’d stab me with a fork over his name?_

Lawliet stares at him, long and hard, but doesn’t say anything. His eyes are unfathomable, and he’s got a thumb jammed under his lip, crouching like a peculiar frog. He seems to come to a decision, “Wammy, Beyond and I are going to pop out to get iced cream. You like iced cream, don’t you?”

The question is so serious for a moment that Beyond can’t help the grin the crawls over his lips, “Yeah.”

Lawliet hops out from his seat on the plush cushions, and Beyond follows. While they walk out towards the purple neon sign, Beyond jumps at the flickering image of a yawning mouth of teeth superimposed on the reindeer display. Rats crawl at the base of it, but he’s sure those are memories too. _Pretty sure._

“Stop it.” he mumbles at the way Lawliet stares, “Sometimes I see other things too. But the names and numbers are the only ones that mean anything. That’s a reindeer, right?”

* * *

L’s eyes pass between the display and Beyond’s uncertain expression, trying to make sense of the question for a few seconds before simply deciding to answer it at face value.

“Well, it isn’t a real reindeer.” The reindeer has comically long eyelashes, in fact. “It isn’t very realistic, more of a fantastical rendition. Like you might see in a storybook.” He looks back at Beyond to see how he’s processing this answer. With relief, it seems. 

L wants to ask what the reindeer looks like to Beyond, but decides to put in his order at the counter, first, requesting a hot fudge sundae made with strawberry iced cream. Beyond quietly asks for a regular hot fudge sundae, and L tells the server to top both their orders with extra whipped cream and sprinkles.

They watch the server put together their sundaes, then sit at high stools and dig their dessert out of parfait glasses with long spoons, Beyond spinning back and forth just slightly, his eyes closed with evident pleasure.

_Iced Cream for two_ _[do not edit or repost]_

“I don’t understand how you can see names and numbers,” L finally says, gazing at Beyond over the rim of his sundae glass. “I’ve never heard of anyone who can do such a thing. But there’s no other way you could know my real name….” he trails off and sucks at the end of his spoon, both frustrated and fascinated. 

“How do you do it? And what kind of numbers? What do they mean?” 

* * *

 

The sweetness of the sundae goes colder on Beyond’s tongue as he turns back to Lawliet’s intent gaze, “You really want to know, huh?”

 _I’ve never told it to anyone who’d actually believe me_. 

He exhales, looking over his shoulder at the men wearing his father’s face. “They’re… death dates. I can see when people die, and their names. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I don’t know that I want to. All I know is that everyone I’ve met–” the words die in his throat. _I don’t know people for long, really._

“They’ve never been wrong before,” Beyond forces himself to look back at Lawliet, who has his brow pinched in something between skepticism, awe, and slight fear,  “Look, you don’t have to worry about yours though, you won’t die till–”

“Don’t.”

“Sorry, sorry.” The date above Lawliet’s head is long, longer than even most of the kids he’s met. They both turn back to the remains of their iced cream sundaes, the air suddenly grim and uncomfortable. Lawliet is licking his spoon back and forth in an almost fervent manner. “So what’s so important about your name, anyways?”

* * *

 

The laughter from people roaming the food halls, the cheery blast of Christmas music on the sound system – all of it shrinks away as L sucks on the end of his spoon and turns the peculiar boy’s words over in his head. He’s familiar with all of the mental disorders that might induce hallucinations, but being able to see the date of someone’s death is such a specific type of vision that it gives him pause. 

L has never had anything remotely supernatural happen to him before, and even entertaining the possibility of Beyond’s claimed abilities is enough to make his entire skin squirm with a skeptic’s discomfort. If he were an ordinary boy he would probably decide then and there that Beyond was either a nutter or a pathological liar and leave it at that, if only to keep the safe, sane walls of his world intact. But in the end he’s L – not very ordinary after all – and certainly drawn to the extraordinary no matter what threat to his world-view it might pose.

“Everyone calls me Lars,” he mutters around his spoon. “L is the title of a detective who solves cases that Scotland Yard and CLP have given up on.” He scoops up the last of his sundae and swallows it with a slurp. “I’ve solved over forty cold cases in England alone. I guess you could say it’s a hobby.” Though the word _hobby_ seems like a dreadful understatement. 

L pushes his parfait glass aside and regards Beyond with a tilt of his head. “I want to see how your eyes work.” He gestures with a shrug at the crowd filtering in and out of the aisles behind the ice cream parlor. “There’s a lot of people here. Are any of them going to die today?”

* * *

 

Beyond freezes up when the word _detective_ falls out of Lawliet’s mouth, loud, angry voices from many nights before starting to fill his ears. Lawliet’s entire attention is directed at him, dark eyes shaded under the wild mop of messy black hair. _If I lie to him, he’ll know._

Beyond turns his head, scans the crowd, squinting over the sea of faces that morph and meld into memory to the red letters that float above, “No one here. Not soon, anyways.”

Lawliet looks away for a moment, tapping the spoon against his lower lip, then staring at B intently. _He’s going to find out, he’ll know what you did–_ Beyond forces those thoughts closed, _I don’t even know what I did._

_But maybe if he knows. Maybe if he believes me, what I see…maybe we can find out._

“There’s someone else, though,” Beyond knots his fingers together, unable to meet Lawliet’s gaze, “I’m not… I don’t have parents.”

“I know.” there’s such a gentle seriousness to Lawliet’s voice, that Beyond knows, knows he understands. It surprises him for a moment, presses his words on with more honesty.

“I was staying with an old granny– her name’s Marla Porter,” Beyond swallows, hard, thinking of the lonely woman in her empty house, chasing at shadow-memories.

“She’s gonna die. It’s gonna be tomorrow.”

* * *

Beyond licks his lips anxiously at his own words, his eyes cast down into the remnants of his sundae. It’s a sight that both perplexes L and makes something twist low in his side, right below his ribs. He looks away, and it’s a few beats before he can look back again.

“That means you don’t have anywhere to stay tonight, yeah?” 

Beyond gives a reluctant nod, and it’s enough to make L jump off his stool and hold up a hand to keep Beyond from following.  “Wait here. I’m going to get Wammy and see about putting you up.” 

L finds Wammy finishing up at the gift wrap centre, giving polite instructions to a shop clerk who’s loaded up a trolley with their purchases. “There you are,” he says when he sees L approaching. “And where’s your new friend?”

“Finishing his sundae.” L gestures for Wammy to lean in so that he can speak low in his ear. “He’s a runaway, but he says he doesn’t have parents. I think he could fit in at Wammy’s, but it might be good to get his whole story first. Can we put him up at Marylebone tonight?” 

Wammy straightens up a little, adjusting his glasses. “He’s from America, Lars. Even if he is an orphan, installing him at the school will be a unique challenge.”

“But not _impossible_ , right?” 

To that Wammy only purses his lips together and looks thoughtful. “In any case, he’s certainly welcome at Marylebone for now. I’ll bring the car around front and you two can meet me in fifteen minutes,” he says, passing L his coat.

Later, when the Bentley is gliding through traffic and turning toward the West End, L asks Beyond how he ended up in London. The answer involves much animated description about hopping a freighter ship as a stowaway, a story almost too fanciful to believe – except the kid must have come ashore _somehow,_ and L doesn’t have a terribly hard time imagining him scuttling around the decks, squinting into the sunlight and hiding, mouse-like, between the cargo containers.

“Oh, where are we?” Beyond asks when Wammy turns the Bentley into a small underground parking lot. 

“Marylebone. It’s the Wammy family’s flat in the city.” A penthouse, in fact, though L doesn’t regard this detail as important. “The Wammy family manor is outside Winchester. That’s South of here. But it’s been turned into an orphanage and school now.”

And with that, the Bentley comes to a smooth halt and L unlatches his door, rounding the car to let Beyond out.

* * *

 

The apartment is grand– far too grand for Beyond to feel comfortable in. The floors are oak, the tables are teak wood with inlaiden carvings, the couches a vivid crimson. Lawliet shucks off his shoes like they’ve personally wronged him, puts his bare feet on the couch, drawing his knees up to his chest.

Beyond, figuring that’s the proper way to sit on these damn thing, follows suit.

“You can sit any way you like, you know.” Lawliet has an amused smile playing on his lips.

“Well that suits me just fine.” Beyond stretches his legs out so that his bare feet dangle over the couch next to Lawliet, who smirks, but doesn’t comment.

Beyond takes a a deck of cards that the sailors gave him before he’d left and fumbles them between his hands nervously, forcing himself to keep still when images flash out of the corner of his vision. He shuffles the deck, trying to distract himself. _Is this a mistake?_ Lawliet doesn’t look like he’s going to arrest him– in fact, he’s hopped off the couch to grab a rather large notebook and textbook.

“Are you working on…detective stuff right now?” Beyond crawls over to Lawliet’s end of the couch, peering over at a language he doesn’t recognize.

* * *

 

“No, I’m studying – It’s Italian.” L tilts the book toward Beyond, noticing that he’s stopped playing with that deck of cards he brought out a bit ago. L doesn’t bother mentioning that Italian will be his ninth language, once he’s reached conversational fluency. In his earliest years Saskia had spoken to him in English, Russian, Mandarin, and Dutch, and by the time she died, multi-lingualism was as natural to him as breathing and walking.

Even so, L doesn’t like studying languages so much as he strongly dislikes the idea of eavesdropping on someone and not being able to comprehend what they’re saying.

Beyond’s face falls a little as he squints at L’s Italian book, clearly disappointed that it isn’t full of detective stuff. L hesitates a few seconds before quietly shutting the book and setting it aside. “I suppose I can show you what I’ve been browsing through.”

He scoots off the sofa and fetches a heavy file folder from his book bag, then crouches on the floor in front of Beyond and flips it open. “The FBI hasn’t acknowledged me yet, so I’ve been looking through some of their cold cases,” he says, laying out a sheath of papers next to Beyond’s knees. “Don’t ask me how I got these, by the way,” he adds, widening his eye a little, “but I’m looking for ones that are interesting. Also challenging. It’s not fun if it’s easy.” 

* * *

 

Beyond tenses when the FBI is mentioned, trying not to show too much nervousness as he flips through. Looking for his name. There’s a lot of New York in the case files, but nothing as recent as July 1989. _So maybe they’re not looking for me after all. Or at least it’s not a challenge to him._

He chews at the skin of his knuckles while he flips through the grotesque unfinished stories. Murders where the corpses are years dead, a mob boss who used only hand-to-hand combat, a strangled six-year-old ransomed in a wine cellar. One of the boys, from Louisiana, has been missing since age thirteen. Beyond squints at his name, floating in red over the image. _Death date’s still a while yet._

“Nine years…long fucking time to be missing, and still alive,” Beyond says to no one in particular. _I wonder if I could end up on these case files._ He scans the story, a simple disappearance from a basketball game, never seen since. The parents look pleasant in a family photograph, but one of the neighbours providing testimony has a curled lip that makes Beyond’s skin crawl.

 _Their dates are close._  Beyond doesn’t linger on what that means, if anything. It’s odd, though. 

* * *

L nibbles on the edges of his finger as he watches Beyond study the case files. He can hear Wammy rattling around in the kitchen behind them, probably putting together a light supper. 

L has never spoken to someone his own age about the work he does; he doesn’t often, in fact, speak to people his own age very often at all. The other kids at Wammy’s were at one time intrigued by L and his particular type of reclusiveness, but now they’ve mostly got used to him skipping lessons and disappearing from the school for long periods at a time. He’s quite sure that most of them believe that he’s sickly.

And so L nearly holds his breath as he continues to watch Beyond, bracing himself for a particularly daft question or – worse yet – a silly bout of childish crying. But Beyond only reads the files with curious eyes, rattling off a single observation: “Nine years…long fucking time to be missing, and still alive.”

 _Fucking_. L thinks about how he said the curse word so casually. As if he’s not trying to be impressive or bombastic, but just speaks that way on a regular basis, which L supposes he must.

“Mm, that’s the Shaun Simmons case?” L crawls up on the sofa to look over Beyond’s shoulder. Shaun’s school photo shows off his large, crooked teeth and freckled cheeks. “Why’d you think he’s still alive?” 

Beyond tilts away to look at L, his hazel eyes wide and searching. A split-second before he opens his mouth to explain, L catches on.

“Wait. You can see names and death dates on photographs, too?” 

Beyond gives him a small nod, and L sucks in a breath and looks at the photograph of Shaun again. “Oh, that’s really useful,” he admits. “For this type of work, anyway. If the FBI knew he was alive, they probably wouldn’t have let the case go cold.”

 _It’s useful if it’s_ true _,_ L reminds himself, glancing at the clock. It’s only just past seven, several hours yet until the date of Marla Porter’s death. 

* * *

 

The word ‘useful’ whirls around Beyond’s mind with every case he flips through, spreading them out on the fine Persian carpet in little piles. _I’d never thought of it as anything other than knowing when you could kill someone, if you wanted._ He bites a little harder at his knuckles, wondering how Lawliet got into his ‘hobby’. Just as he’s about to say something, Mr. Wammy comes over.

“There’s tomato soup and cheese biscuits for dinner if you boys would care to join me,” he looks momentarily surprised when he sees Beyond poring over the thick file of cases, but doesn’t comment. Over dinner, Beyond asks Lawliet more about Shaun Simmons, and he rhymes off a few stories that could be theories, which the two of them almost get into an argument about—if Lawliet weren’t so damn good at showing that he was _right_. He’s not showy about it though, so it’s the first time Beyond has lost an argument that doesn’t end in a fistfight.  For a moment, he almost forgets about what date tomorrow is, his eyes staying in the glow of the room, with the savory scent of tomato soup.

“I think I’m going to retire, boys. Beyond can take the third bedroom for whenever you decide to go to bed.”

“I think we’ll be up a little later. Perhaps we ought to watch a movie.” Lawliet glances meaningfully at Beyond from across the table.

“That’s an excellent idea, Lars. I’ll make some popcorn before I retire. Beyond, do you have anything you’d like?”

“Do you have Batman?” Beyond asks, suddenly animated. The film was so interesting that Beyond had snuck in to see it in the theatre twice. The story was easy to fall in to, easy to forget about the world outside while watching. _Could use that right now._

“Yeah, Batman sounds great.” Lawliet nods, and Beyond takes a seat next to him on the couch, still studying him out of the corner of his eyes. Beyond has never met a kid detective before, never met anyone quite like the sharp-eyed boy in front of him. _He’s a detective like Batman. Are_ _his parents gone too?_  But the movie titles are starting to flicker on the screen, and Beyond focuses his attention there, to blot out the whispers and skitter of images that are just as false.

* * *

 

At Wammy’s House they have movie nights one or two times a month, and L usually skips them unless it’s a movie he’s really been itching to see. The other kids are too chatty and restless, making him want to order them all out of the room, but Beyond proves to be decent movie-watching company. He sits quietly, a sofa cushion hugged to his chest, and takes the film in with rapt eyes. After a moment, L forgets that he’s there and falls into the spell of the film, too. 

“It’s good, isn’t it?” L announces when the ending credits have finished parading down the screen. He walks over to the VCR and pushes the ‘rewind’ button. “The Joker isn’t a very good criminal mastermind, though. Too showy, almost like he wants to be caught.” 

“Maybe he just wanted people to know what he was,” Beyond suggests in a faltering way, so that L turns to catch an odd expression on his face. L isn’t usually mindful of other people’s emotions, even if he can pick up on them exceedingly well, but a ripple of intuition tells him to take care with this conversation. 

“You mean a monster? He blames Batman for that. And Batman blames the Joker for creating him when he killed his parents.” L climbs back onto the sofa and perches over the popcorn bowl, idly picking out a few kernels. “I think they both want their epic showdown, really,” he says, cracking a small grin. “Batman seems just as mad as the Joker sometimes, don’t you think?” 

* * *

 

“Yeah, I thought that too!” Beyond drops the pillow, gesturing animatedly with his hands, “Man, and wasn’t it risky that Alfred told Vicky that he was Batman? I mean she’s a _reporter_! Not that there’s anything wrong with people knowing…secrets. Secret identities, that is. I’ll keep yours, y’know?”

Lawliet nods at him very seriously, “You have to. No one else knows except Wammy.”

“I will. I will.” Beyond eyes the numbers above Lawliet’s forehead, and guesses by the look of it that Lawliet’s detective work isn’t much like Batman’s. His stories are good though. And he doesn’t seem…scared of Beyond, which is surprisingly nice for a change.

“So is Mr. Wammy your Alfred, if you’re a detective?” Beyond reaches for a handful of the popcorn kernels at the bottom of the bowl, crunching them thoughtfully, “And do you really live in a mansion?” 

* * *

 

The barrage of questions from Beyond, paired with his insistence that he will keep L’s secrets, sends a flutter of unease through L’s belly. The possible consequences of opening up himself to a stranger hasn’t been lost of L, exactly, but the novelty of this whole experience has kept him from fully contemplating them until now. 

L watches Beyond scoop popcorn into his mouth and decides that he should be easy enough to discredit, if it comes to that. But for now it feels interesting – good, almost – to actually talk to someone about his ‘real’ life other than Wammy.

“Not a butler at all,” L says, picking up some popcorn between his thumb and forefinger. “He’s a lord, actually, and my legal guardian, as well as the founder of Wammy’s House. I suppose its a mansion, as its massive and really old, but a lot of people live there other than us. Orphans, but Wammy’s House is more of a school than an orphanage.” 

He plays with the popcorn kernels instead of eating them, not particularly hungry. “My parents are dead, too. I never even met my father, though.” 

He raises his eyebrows at Beyond a little. “What about you?”

* * *

 

“I…knew my dad, yeah. Didn’t see him much, but he was a good guy,” Beyond thinks of his rare visits, the sheepish grin and the screaming from his mother than his dad would just shrug off. _Always drove him away eventually, though._ “I knew when he was going to die, too." 

He turns away, biting his tongue hard. _Had to find out how, didn’t I?_ The word _devil_ rings out in his ears, and he tastes blood, tries to unclench his jaw. Forces himself to look at Lawliet. _Don’t act suspicious. Don’t._

"Pretty sure my mum wanted me dead.” “She was always all fucked up, so I’m not surprised that her day was soon after I got to London.”

 _You’re the devil. How did you know? HOW DID YOU KNOW?_ Her screams echo in Beyond’s ears, the image of her cracked fingernails reaching to claw at him flickering in front of his eyes.

 _It’s alright. She’s dead now. She has to be._ He keeps his eyes on Lawliet, who seems calm, slightly skeptical, but not altogether disbelieving, either. Just assessing. Beyond glances at the clock, just passing eleven. _Guess it’s getting close to time_. His heartbeat picks up, realizing what it would mean for someone like Lawliet to _know_. To believe him. He’s not even sure his mother did, even after everything that happened. _But someone_ has _to._ That’s enough to believe in for now.

He takes a deep breath, “Are we going to go, or what?”

 


	2. December 19-21, 1989

**December 19-20 1989**

Before they leave, L leaves a note by the teakettle for Wammy: _Off on an errand that will help Beyond. I’ll phone if it keeps us out past dawn. Don’t worry._ His hope is that he’ll be able to toss the note in the rubbish bin before Wammy sees it, but December 20th has twenty-four hours in it, just like all other days, and who knows what time Marla Porter will pass on  – if she passes at all.

After bundling back up in his coat and wellies and waiting for Beyond to do the same, L disarms the alarm panel by the flat’s private lift. From the underground parking garage they catch the emergency stairs to the street level, where it’s less quiet than usual for a week night. The holiday season has people staying out late, attending pantos and concerts and long suppers with friends. No one pays them much mind as they walk the short journey to Leicester Square, where the tube has already stopped running for the night, and get in line at a minicab stand. The couple in front of them, both smartly dressed in vintage coats, actually smile at L and Beyond as if they make for an amusing picture. L does his best to ignore them.

“Where to?” their driver asks when they finally crawl into a car, eyeing them in the rear view mirror.

“56 Bromell Road, sir,” Beyond says, his voice sweet and steady. “In Clapham.”

“That’ll put you out twenty quid, lad. You good for it?”

L flashes some banknotes. “We are.”

The driver takes off with no further protest.

56 Bromell Road is a row of aged but well-kept townhomes on a quiet and solidly middle-class street. L pays the driver and, once he’s disappeared around the corner, looks around the area carefully. There’s no one walking about and most of the houses are dim, except for some that have Christmas lights glowing their windows. A soft, rainy drizzle is still coming down, dampening L’s hair and turning Beyond’s into wayward coils.

“Alright then,” L says in a half whisper. “Where to now?”

* * *

 

“She keeps a spare key in the plant on the porch,” Beyond steps on to the concrete steps, reaches his hand into the cold earth to find the metal key. When he unlocks the door, the house is black and silent.

“Her room’s upstairs. We can probably wait in Robert’s.” Beyond hears himself say, almost watching himself quietly walk Lawliet up the stairs.

“Robert?”

“Her dead son.”

The bed is made up with the pink-and-grey hand-woven quilt, as if it’s been waiting for Beyond all day. _It probably has. She probably waited for me, if she remembered._

He sits down heavily on the bed, trying to ignore the mounting roar in his ears. Beyond’s vision is fuzzy with red, and he keeps seeing flashes of knives whenever he looks down at his hands. Lawliet’s weight, dipping on the bed, distracts him with the sensation momentarily. Lawliet, at least, still looks solid and substantial amidst the darkness pooling into images in the corners of the room. Beyond sits up very straight, tries to look at nothing at all.

_Just keep it together. Just until he sees._

* * *

 

Marla Porter’s house is quiet except for the soft patter of rain on the windows. L sits quietly on her son’s bed for a few minutes, taking in the faint odor of lavender talcum powder and dust, and wonders what, exactly, they’re supposed to do in this dark bedroom for the next several hours. He looks at Beyond for an idea but the other boy has gone curiously still and silent. He doesn’t even get out that deck of cards again.

“I’m going to look in her bedroom,” L says in a low whisper. Beyond’s only reply is a vague nod and a whispered _okay,_ subdued in a manner L hasn’t seen from him before.

_But we did just meet. And he seems a little…off._

“I’ll be back in a minute,” L assures him, then creaks open the bedroom door and slips into the hallway.

He knows he’s found Marla’s room when he hears soft snores coming from an open door. Peeking inside, there’s just enough light for L to make out a tangle of iron-grey hair on a white pillow case. She’s sound asleep and appears to be breathing without any trouble.

_Maybe she doesn’t die in her sleep after all._

The thought saddens L a little as he backs away from the doorway. Passing away while seeping seems the kindest way to go. Even Saskia had seemed at peace like that, and she had been furious about dying, despite being as weak from illness as she was.

When L returns to Robert’s room he’s astonished to see that Beyond appears to have fallen asleep, curled into a little ball on the corner of the bed. It’s only when he moves in closer that he realizes Beyond’s eyes are wide-open, that he’s shaking from head to foot, clutching at his knees as if in effort to hold himself together, a soft whimper issuing deep from his chest.

“Beyond, what are you doing?” He kneels on the bed and bends over the boy. “What’s wrong?

* * *

 

As soon as Lawliet slips out, the room seems to melt inwards on Beyond. Nothing looks familiar, the cheap wood paneling starting to morph into faces, lips that whisper overtop of teeth that grind. Some wear the faces of monsters. Some wear the face of family. Beyond draws his knees closer together, willing himself not to cry out.

_Don’t close your eyes._

_Remember what happened the last time you closed them._

He stares outwards as the visions close in. A man hands him a knife, his hands aren’t shaking too much to hold it, there’s blood on them, _his father’s blood_. A light buzz comes to his ears, something like words.

_“Beyond, what are you doing? What’s wrong?_

He blinks to catch the dark-eyed boy that he thinks he remembers, solid and substantial amidst the whispy images. He scrambles upwards, grabs at the boy’s bony arms and registers them as warm, _real._

“Don’t let me kill her! You can’t let me kill her!” His yell seems foreign even to his own ears, ripped from his throat even as he glances back and forth at the red-eyed monsters closing in on him.

“Who’s there?” Even amidst the haze, Beyond recognizes the frail, fearful call as someone he _knows_ . The other figure freezes on the bed, then there’s grip _back_ on his arm, tugging into the armoire, the door closing till it’s open just a crack. In the sliver of light, Beyond can just make out the plain white of a cotton shirt, a chest rising and falling quickly next to his. He drops his head to a warm shoulder, keeping his eyes there, trying _trying trying,_ not to scream again.

Someone is still gripping his arm, hard. Someone’s still going to stop him.

* * *

 

 _Shh, shh_ – the noise gallops through L’s head as he struggles to hold his breath, one hand viced around Beyond’s arm, the other poised to clap over his mouth if he shouts out again.

“Who’s there?” Marla repeats in a wavering voice, and L feels Beyond tremble so hard that it makes L tremble, too, as if the sensation were catching.

“Best come out now! I’m calling for for the police!” The wavering is replaced with a surprising note of mettle. The sound of someone who’s definitely not bluffing.

 _No, don’t!_ L can’t have the police find him, that could ruin everything, all his plans. And Beyond – L’s fingers flex around his arm – he’ll be sent back to New York, the place he crossed a whole ocean to get away from. No, there can’t be any police.

“Let’s go!” L hisses, shoving the armoire door open and dragging Beyond with him, tearing as fast he can out into the hallway. He just manages to dodge Marla as she totters into their path, looking ghostly in her pale dressing down, her face bleary with sleep and confusion.

“Robert!” she gasps, and there’s a note of joy and relief in her voice that nearly gives L pause, almost makes him come to a stop. But adrenaline is already thick and noisy in his blood, propelling his legs down the stairs, Beyond nearly stumbling on them before L re-grips his wrist and hoists him up again.

Then they’re on the landing and L has his hand on the knob for the front door, so close, so close. Just as he moves to turn it, a horrible clamor comes from the stairs behind them, the sound of limbs banging together, against banisters and walls, as Marla’s frail body plummets down the stairs.

She doesn’t even cry out, just smiles and reaches.

* * *

 

Beyond remembers the boy’s name, _Lawliet_ halfway down the stairs when his legs catch up to him and the adrenaline kicks in. He blinks again in the dim vestibule when the horrible crash sounds behind him, and the woman he knows crumples to a bony heap at the foot of the stairs.

There’s another corpse in front of him, her skin luminous in the streetlights from the windows. He stares a moment at the unusual angle of her neck. _Oh._

“Did I kill her?”

“She fell.” Lawliet hasn’t let go of his arm. Beyond doesn’t let go of his hand.

“She fell going after me, didn’t she?” Lawliet doesn’t say anything for a moment, still “I killed her. I killed her like I killed my father. Oh fuck, oh god I—“

He tries to run towards the still-closed door, tries to twist himself out of Lawliet’s grip, but Lawliet doesn’t let go, tugs him back. It all _breaks_ then, silent tears are screaming out of his eyes to drop on to Lawliet’s coat, to stain his white shirt. There are arms around his shoulders, knees to the floor.

They’re both shaking, leaves blown from autumn to winter in a single fall. Hands grip tightly at his shoulder blades. Beyond clumsily tries to rub Lawliet’s spine back, but his hands are shaking too hard. _I don’t care what happens to me anymore._

_Don’t let go._

* * *

 

L can’t stop looking at the back of Marla’s head, at the way her neck twists at an unnatural angle, at how the moonlight from the window dares to fall gently on the upper half of her body. Beyond is crying almost noiselessly against him, but what little sound there is tugs the emotion right out of L, leaving him numb in its wake.

 _She died because we came here?_ He thinks. _Or would she have died some different way if we hadn’t come?_

His body aches a little. It takes him a moment to realize it’s because he’s quaking so hard, squeezing Beyond’s shoulders even harder. With that little bit of pain comes clarity, though, and as it pours through him he relaxes his hold and pulls back slightly.

“We have to leave,” he whispers. Marla never did call the police, but that doesn’t matter. L wants to get back to the only home he has as fast as he can. “Come on.” He helps the other boy up, gets them both outside and into the driving rain.

It doesn’t take them long to find a minicab, thankfully, but this driver’s older, his wrinkle-set, watery eyes widening when he sees how young they are, how red Beyond’s cheeks are from crying.

“What are you boys doing out so late? Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” L gulps, trying desperately to school his features. “Father’s been drinking again, so we’re going to our grandparents.”

“Oh, dear,” the man tuts, looking doubtful.

“10 Wimpole Street in Marylebone, sir. Please hurry, grandfather’s waiting for us.”

The address seems to put the driver’s doubts to rest, and L feels Beyond’s fingers grip his hand harder as the car pops into gear and threads its way down the street.

[ ](http://66.media.tumblr.com/d088ab5dd6e46e404f2e3b3bc059f47d/tumblr_oelw6b9h6A1vxcoefo1_1280.jpg)

_Getaway [do not edit or repost without permission]_

* * *

 

**December 20 1989**

Beyond keeps his grip on Lawliet’s hand all the way until they return to the finery of the penthouse. _It happened again. My eyes did this. I did this._  Lawliet doesn’t pull away, doesn’t draw back from him.

 _He knows and he’s still…here._ Beyond tries not to think about what they both know now, the image of Marla’s body seared, superimposed over his father’s corpse.   _He knows_

The first thing Lawliet does is crumples the note on the countertop. Wammy is still fast asleep, the velvet couches the only witness to their return. He catches Lawliet’s black eyes, forces himself to let go of his hand.

“Look– I knew that would…I could have–”  the words die in his throat. He holds Lawliet’s gaze for a moment longer before running towards his room, pulling the door shut without a backwards glance. _I’m sorry I…fuck. Fuck fuck fuck._

Beyond draws the warm blue duvet up around him, the pillows much softer than anything he’s used to. Not that it helps. He stays up watching the red-oak door for several hours longer, not knowing if expects Lawliet to drag him off to jail, or sit with him and the leaden weight in his stomach. Rats skitter round his eyes. He tries to keep them open as long as he can.

* * *

 

L doesn’t sleep.

There’s too much to keep him awake – the twisted, broken branches of Marla Porter’s frail figure at the bottom of the stairs, the red crescent marks on the back of L’s hand, left by Beyond’s desperate fingernails.

There’s too much to comprehend – a whole new reality, cracked open right before L’s own eyes. Beyond was telling the truth. Either he walks with death or death walks with him. _But how?_

And why Beyond? Why a kid.

He pores over his case files, though it does little to distract him or lull him toward somnolence. He wishes Beyond hadn’t disappeared into his bedroom, that they could have stayed up to talk about what happened. But whenever L goes to his room it’s because he wants to be alone, and he can only assume that Beyond wants to be by himself now, too.

It’s only when he hears Wammy wake up and start rattling around the kitchen that L remembers Beyond’s frantic words: _“I killed her. I killed her like I killed my father.”_

What does Beyond see through those eyes of his?

“Good morning,” Wammy rumbles pleasantly when L pads into the kitchen in his pajamas. “The pantry wasn’t very well stocked for our unexpected stay, but I’m making oatmeal with apples for breakfast.” He’s already got the pot on the stove, the water just beginning to steam. “Is Beyond still asleep?”

“I’ll go check on him,” L says, relieved that Wammy knows nothing of their late night exploits.

When he gets to the guest bedroom door he hesitates, ears straining. There’s no sound from behind the wood, so he knocks and waits. Nothing.

“Beyond,” he says, barely above a whisper. “I’m coming in.”

* * *

 

Beyond hears the knock, but isn’t sure if it’s in his mind or not. It’s only when he hears the quiet, certain voice that he realizes Lawliet hasn’t _left_ , for better or for worse, the events of last night happened, and they’re both still here.

_And someone else is dead because of me._

His bare feet are on the cool wood just as Lawliet pulls the door closed. When he steps closer to look him in the eye, they share a slow, awful camaraderie of those who carry secrets. Beyond’s tongue is stuck to his throat, but Lawliet doesn’t look at him with anything more than a careful wariness, somewhere between pity and compassion.

His arms are around Lawliet’s shoulders before he can think of what to say. It’s a clumsy hug, but it’s the only thing he can manage. He pulls back almost as soon as it begins, Lawliet seeming jarred but not repelled by the sudden contact. He knots his fingers together, still not knowing what to say.

_You stayed. You might arrest me or throw me out but you stayed you’re not afraid of what I am._

“Hi,” is what comes out when he looks up at last.

* * *

 

The pouncing hug is unexpected, but L recovers well enough, giving a small nod to Beyond’s greeting.

“Were you able to sleep?” Beyond shakes his head at the question. “Me either.” L perches on the end of the bed and digs his toes into the comforter. “Wammy doesn’t know anything, which is good…” he trails off, at loose ends. Where, then, to begin?

_Begin with how you shouldn’t have tried to run out of the house. How you should have stopped when you heard Marla say her son’s name. How you should have thought about the woman who was about to die instead of how the police might be coming for you._

L gnaws on the end of his thumb and looks down at his toes. “Would she still have died if I hadn’t made us run for it? That’s what I don’t understand. Or would she had died in some different way, in her sleep or choking on her morning toast?”

He finally tilts his head and meets eyes with Beyond, feeling rather helpless and not liking it one bit. What he really wants to ask is _How do you do this?_ _How do you not go mad?_ Except he’s not sure that B isn’t halfway there already. Not that he blames him.

* * *

 

“I don’t _know._ I know people that have died on their day and I haven’t been there.” He bites his lip, staring helplessly at Lawliet. _I thought this time would be like that._  “It’s not like I go to watch much, right?”

 _I try not to._ But he couldn’t stay away. He watches he and Lawliet’s bare feet dangle next to each other on the bed. It’s all still a bit surreal. But despite the events of the previous night, the scars of a sleepless night under his eyes, he feels lighter underneath his ribcage.

“When did you know?” Lawliet asks quietly. Beyond picks at the skin of his knuckles, remembering it too vividly. While he was a kid, that was always the question, wasn’t it? Pages and pages of dates scrawled, mainly his parents’, but also anyone he came across. _What do they mean?_

Even when he was three, he knew that no one else saw what he did. It just wasn’t _normal_ . Not normal to look at death, know death, see it with such a quiet fascination as he does. _I should be afraid._

_He should be afraid._

“I was five, I think? Woman on my block. Think it was cancer. But it was her husband, his date was three days later, and he went out right then,” Beyond tries not to see the man’s face in the still life that hangs on the bedroom wall, “Freak car accident. That’s when I was sure.”

 _Nothing changes the numbers. But I thought…if I was there._ He inclines his eyes downward, trying to focus on the rich blue of the duvet rather than anything of the images starting to creep up on him. _Don’t think. Maybe if I can stay useful to Lawliet, he won’t arrest me._

* * *

 

L does his best to imagine what it would be like to see things that no one else can; to have the proof that it’s all real, and actually means something, and not have any way to share it with anyone else.

“It must have been lonely.” The words slip out from around the thumb jammed in his mouth, his eyes only loosely focused on the bedroom’s striped wallpaper.

Of course, if it had been L seeing death dates, Saskia would have been interested. She would have probably stopped all of her research and asked to know everything about it. But Beyond’s parents probably weren’t like Saskia, they must have been ordinary people, afraid of what they don’t know and can’t understand.

_“I killed her. I killed her like I killed my father.”_

That’s right. And Beyond had thought he was going to kill Marla, too. Had been terrified and frantic at the possibility, even.

“What about your parents? Did they know?” L is mindful to keep any accusation out of his voice. It’s just a question. Just a conversation.

* * *

 

Beyond stares at his feet, “My mum sort of knew. She knew there was something wrong with me….I mean, I used to write the dates on everything before I knew. Before I even talked, really, which already set her teeth on edge. She thought I was stupid, and then– she thought I was some kind of devil.”

Her thin, wasted cheeks scream at Beyond from the recesses of memory. He wishes he didn’t have to look. _If I could forget her face, I would._

“I think she believed it when my dad didn’t come home,” the memory is starting to grow thick in his throat, and although Lawliet’s eyes are careful on him, not demanding, but Beyond knows he’s looking for an answer.

Beyond wants to give him one.

“The thing is– I had to see it happen. My Dad’s death. Had to see if I could save him,” _He was good, even if he was never there._ Beyond goes very still, focusing in on Lawliet’s white shirt, remembering it from the night before. He forces the words out, “He got in a fight with a man– something about money, I don’t know. But I got scared, and when that happens I don’t– see things right. I don’t even know where I am, if it gets bad.”

It’s only when he meets Lawliet’s black eyes that he realizes, _I’m not afraid. Not right now._

“He was stabbed. When I figured out where I was, I don’t know if I killed him or not,” Beyond swallows, his hands shaking just slightly, “But I had the knife in my hand. That’s all I know.”

* * *

 

L hears Beyond’s voice waver as he speaks, like there are tears building up at the back of his throat. His hands shake, too, and without knowing if it’s the right thing to do, L grabs Beyond’s right hand and squeezes it, pressing both of their knuckles into the mattress.

Privately, he hopes that Beyond won’t start crying, because he won’t know what to do if he does. L only cries when he hurts himself or when he’s very cross, and he never lets anyone see him when that happens.

“Alright,” he says slowly, his mind shuffling through the details that Beyond’s just shared with him. “If we treat these as hypotheticals, what’s more likely:, that a grown man fighting with you father over money killed him, or that you did? You’re much smaller, and stabbing someone to death isn’t easy. And you wanted to save him, too.”

Beyond nods, his lower lip trembling ever so slightly.

“I don’t know what you see when you get scared, but just because you see bad things doesn’t mean that you’re bad,” L says with the simplicity of someone who isn’t trying to persuade but merely accepts his own words as irrefutable fact.

* * *

 

 _Doing bad things makes you a bad person though._  Beyond tries to squeeze Lawliet’s fingers back, but his grip feels weak even to himself. Lawliet’s fingers are long amidst his, and the tears he’s holding back come from a deep sense of relief, like he’s been wrung out at squeezed dry.

 _“_ I don’t _know_ what I did,” He exhales to blink his tears back,“And I don’t know that I won’t do it again.”

_All I know is that I can see things that no one else can. I don’t know what that makes me._

A knock at the door sounds– Beyond flinches, looking uncertain, but Lawliet seems to understand.

“It’s just Wammy. Don’t worry.” He keeps his voice low and quiet.

“I have breakfast for you boys, if you’re ready for it while it’s still hot.” the voice from the door is gentle, not insistent.

“We’ll be out in a moment,” Lawliet calls back, squeezing Beyond’s knuckles gently, then loosening his grip. He looks back at Beyond searchingly, as if measuring what best to say “It’s alright. Where we’re going– the Wammy’s house in Winchester– it’s safe. Everyone is young, and the town itself has a low crime rate, especially compared to London and New York. And if you’re ever unsure about anything you see– just ask me.”

Beyond’s chest lifts slightly, gratitude spilling through him in a rush. The words stop in his throat twice before he finds what’s enough to say. To offer in return,  “Maybe what I see can help you on your detective stuff too?”

“Yeah,” Lawliet says with the first smile they’ve shared this morning. Beyond feels a slight glow in his chest, even as he lets go of Lawliet’s hand, “I think that would be great.”

* * *

The drive back to Winchester will only take an hour and a half, so L convinces Wammy to stop at a department store out in Brentford, where he then quietly suggests to Beyond that he pick out a better fitting winter coat. Beyond shakes his head at this, murmuring that he likes his coat just fine.

“Boots, though,” he says. “I need those.”

They get him new socks, underthings, and pajamas, too. Near the till, L checks out the sweets display, looking the rack up and down for pez dispensers, like he always does, hoping to add to his collection. There are no pez here, though, which isn’t a surprise. He usually has to order them by mail from the United States.

“You gonna get anything?” Beyond asks, coming up behind him. L slowly shakes his head. Sugar nearly always sounds good, but he can’t begin to imagine what he wants right now. To be home, mostly.

“Let’s go.”

When they’re settled back into the Bentley and headed for Winchester, it’s only a few kilometres before Beyond tucks himself up into the crevice between his seat and the car door and falls asleep. Only then does L finally close his own eyes and press his cheek against the window’s glass.

It’s the bumpy drive up from the Wammy’s House gate that wakes L up, and when he looks through the rain-streaked glass he spots the old carriage building, its roof green with moss, and the narrow bridge that will take them over the Itchen River to the main house.

“Wake up, Beyond,” he says, giving the boy’s shoulder a slight jostle.

* * *

 

Beyond’s eyelashes flutter at the soft touch on his shoulder, then his mouth drops open as he takes in the view. The Wammy House is like something out of the rare, magical books he has read about England. The fine stonework climbs high above them, windows facing out that are decorated with large wreaths. Beyond thinks he can make out the glow of fairy lights around a tall tree in the central window.

_Wammy’s House [do not edit or repost]_

 

The entire manor is surrounding by a sweeping moor with a forest behind it. Beyond presses his fingers against the glass, “Wow. I can’t believe you live here.”

Lawliet smiles at him as he takes off his seatbelt, “It is quite something, I suppose.”

Inside is just as grand, and it glitters with holiday spirit. The vestibule has gold-framed oil paintings, thick wreaths with holly and ivy, and traditional garlands. Beyond has never seen anything quite so earnestly festive. His house had only gone as far as cheap tinsel, and the storefronts had always seemed cheap to him.

“I think at least to start, Beyond should stay in the east wing, in the spare bedroom,” Lawliet says to Wammy. Beyond steps away for a moment to look at a painting of a battlefield, the generals barking orders at a raging line of troops. He almost doesn’t notice the neatly-dressed boy who sizes him up from the end of the hall.

“New kid, hmm?” The boy, _Barrett Laurent_ Beyond reads, gives Beyond a once-over and wrinkles his nose at Robert’s oversized coat, “Well, I suppose we all start somewhere. Carrying your sister’s bag?”

There’s a note of distaste in the kid’s voice that makes Beyond Crack his knuckles and glare, “Actually, it’s mine, did you want to make something out of that?”

“Are you threatening me?” the boy seems legitimately taken aback, but a smile of cruel amusement plays on his lips.

“Depends if you’re taking a piss at me,” Beyond growls, not liking the kid one bit. _These are the rich kids I remember,_ “I don’t think you wanna mess with me, Barrett.”

* * *

 

L sighs inwardly at the sound of Barrett’s snide voice. Barrett is one of the children who had a solid, middle-class home life until his father died of an early heart attack, his mother having passed on from cancer years before. He and some of the other more ‘well off’ children occasionally like to lord over those who’ve been abandoned by addicts and layabouts, or never even knew their parents at all. L stays out of it, most of the time. He’s the Headmaster’s actual legal ward – it would be far too easy to install himself as leader of all, but he’s not interested.

He did play tennis against Barrett a few times, and beat him so resoundingly that the other boy had complained of a wrist injury in order to avoid further defeat.

“He’s right, Barrett,” L says quietly, shrugging out of his coat and folding it over his arms. “This is Beyond, my second cousin from the States, and he grew up in New York City. I don’t think your insults about a backpack will trouble him much.”

Barrett blinks, clearly surprised to see L take up for someone. “What’s it to you, Lars?” he asks, the sneer in his voice more of a whine now.

“I just said he’s my cousin, didn’t I?” L turns away from Barrett and delivers an undertone to Beyond: “Just ignore him, he’s very dull.” He gives the sleeve of Beyond’s coat a lazy tug and leads him out into the main hall.

“The library’s down that way,” he says, pointing. “And the saloon is through there. It’s a massive place, though. I’ll have to give you a proper tour later, but for now we can take your stuff to your room."

L guides him to a back staircase and through a dark corridor – a short cut for servants who weren’t meant to be seen, once upon a time – finally turning out on the third floor of the East wing.

"Here it is,” he says, opening the door to a room with a four-poster bed and lots of good light. It’s quite clean even though it smells a little closed-up. “And mine is here.” L opens the door across the hall and down a ways. “Your room doesn’t have a private bath, but there’s one down the hall and to the left."

L wanders into his own bedroom and tosses his things onto the extra-large bed, covered with a mess of quilts, pillows, and the occasional candy-wrapper.

“What do you think?” L says to Beyond, who’s standing in the doorway with an uncertain expression.

* * *

 

Beyond sucks in his breath, his heart beating too quickly for where he is. His eyes are seeing all right, for now though. _Small mercies._ “I guess I kind of can’t believe it. It’s great though, amazing. I’m really okay to stay here?”

Lawliet nods, “Of course. There’s classes during the week when it’s not Christmas holidays, which you can catch up on whenever you get settled. I’m often too busy to go, but I hear they’re quite good.”

Beyond nods, a little overwhelmed. _I thought I’d be on the streets tonight. Now I have a home…and maybe even a friend_. He distracts himself by wandering into Lawliet’s room, which is a little less polished than the rest of the house. There’s a worn couch in the corner with a television set, candy wrappers littering the coffee table, along with heavy books. There’s a modest, and well-coordinated Christmas tree in the corner, all traditional decorations, popcorn, candy canes, gingerbread, golden candles.

The view over the moor is quite impressive, and though the sky is grey, Beyond can imagine on a clear night it would be magical. His jaw drops at the apparatus next to the window “Is that a real telescope?”

Before Lawliet can reply, his eyes fall on a large filing cabinet, with a folder similar to the one he sorted through last night. Beyond glances back at Lawliet. _Barrett called him Lars…_ “The other kids… they don’t know about your detective shit, do they?”

* * *

 

“Yeah, it’s real,” L says, wandering past Beyond and over to the filing cabinet, where he gets out a fresh notebook. He nods at the telescope. “You can try it out later, if you like. It’s even better if you take it to the roof.”

He crawls back onto the bed, uncapping a pen with his teeth. “No one knows about the detective stuff except Wammy.” He pauses significantly. “And you.”

A little shiver crawls up his spine, and he hears snippets of Saskia’s voice, whether from memories or dreams, he’s not sure. Sometimes L didn’t see her for days, and he stayed with the elderly couple next door or crept out to wander on his own, though he was scarcely five years old. _“He’s my son, so of course he’s fine,”_ had been her brisk words to a concerned neighbour. _“You let that cat of yours out of the house to explore, don’t you? You don’t think my son is more clever than your cat?”_

And then there were the other things she said.

_“Watch people closely and never let down your guard. They always have something to hide…”_

_“When the pressure’s on, people will look out for themselves, first – you can count on that.”_

He can’t tell the dreams from the memories, though, and reasons it’s probably not worth further investigation. Saskia’s dead, and L has his life’s work now. That’s what Saskia had always called her research, her _life’s work._ Sometimes she called L that, too.

“You’ll keep it to yourself, then?” L asks, and Beyond nods solemnly. “Good.” He flips open his notebook and runs his fingers over the clean pages, then looks back up to meet Beyond’s eyes. “What if I solved the mystery of your father’s murder? Because right now I’m certain you didn’t kill him.”

* * *

 

Beyond’s eyes widen, and he sits down on the bed next to Lawliet, measuring out Lawliet’s dark eyes, “You’d really do that?”

 _You’d really help me that way too? How can all of this be happening at once?_ Beyond remembers to breathe a moment later. Lawliet simply nods, scribbing down _Beyond’s Case_ at the top of the page, “I expect it’ll be much easier than my usual cold cases.”

“You’re …I don’t know how to thank you. You’re incredible, Lawliet.” Beyond almost wants to hug him again, but there’s a notebook between them, so he settles for hoping that his face shows how much his chest wants to burst.

Lawliet stares at him for a moment, looking almost lost before a smile creeps up on his face, “It’s just what I do.”

“It’s not just that to me.” Beyond says before he even thinks it.

Lawliet looks for a moment like he wants to say something, but turns back to his notes instead, “Of course, I might need to ask you for your help, what you remember of the details. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get from the police records. Will that be alright?”

“I’ll help you,” Beyond nods emphatically, more sure of it than he ever has been of anything, “I have to know.”

_Even if it means I killed him. I have to do this._

* * *

 

“I have to know,” Beyond says, just as L thinks very nearly the same thing. L is pretty certain that’s he’s never before seen anyone look so profoundly grateful, or maybe there’s just something about Beyond’s peculiar eyes that make his emotions shine that much clearer inside them.

And maybe it’s not just that L _has to know_. It’s that it feels good to help Beyond, too.

“Let me start by getting down some information, then,” L says, pen poised.

Some time later, he’s got a growing record of facts about Beyond’s life, which he will later have Wammy confirm by contacting the appropriate authorities. His long list includes Beyond’s parents’ names (Marcus Miller and Cara Clay, who later changed her name to ‘Bianca Birthday’), dates of birth, different residential addresses from over the years, the names of any men that Marcus quarreled with, Marcus’ death date, and every detail Beyond can remember surrounding his father’s violent murder.

“Sorry to ask, but it’s important,” L says from around a toffee he’s been sucking on. “When you came to and had the knife in your hand, was there any blood on your clothing or skin?”

"Maybe a little bit on the front of my shirt, but none on my hands.” Beyond looks a little pale as he answers, a detail that doesn’t escape L’s notice.

“Why don’t we stop for now? I think I’ll have a rest before supper, then I can show you around after we eat?”

“Alright,” Beyond nods, rubbing one eye with the back of his knuckles.

After a visit to Wammy’s office, then a nap and a bath, L fetches Beyond from his new room and takes him down to the kitchens for an early supper. The platters of Shepherd's Pie that have just finished baking are out cooling on the counter, and L serves up plates for them both, giving himself more potato than meat or veg.

“Here.” He passes Beyond his plate and grabs a basket of rolls and a jar of strawberry preserves. Gesturing, he leads Beyond to the informal dining room across from the kitchens, clean but relatively spartan in style. Round, scrubbed-oak tables are set with silverware and paper napkins, and one of Jinny’s staff is pouring water into glasses. “This is where regular meals are served, but we have special dinners in the formal dining room upstairs, and every Sunday there’s a nice high tea in the Saloon. Students aren’t really supposed to raid the kitchens without permission, but if you want something I’ll always get it for you.”

They’re almost finished eating when the other children show up to get their meals, and are on the receiving end of more than a few curious glances. Finishing his last bite of bread and jam, L shows Beyond where to take his dirty dishes, and they leave before the rest of the kids are all settled in.

“I guess we might as well start the tour outside, since it’s stopped raining,” L says, taking a side exit at the top of the stairs, glad he has his jacket with him.

He first points out the parks and gardens that stretch out in front of the old Manor house. “For special occasions, mostly.” Then they turn to round the massive main building, only to meet up with a collection of small, more modern additions. “Greenhouse is there. For growing vegetables, mostly, but sometimes a class uses it. And there’s the stables, and then the tennis courts behind them. Some of the kids use that grassy area over there as a football pitch…”

He trails off, noticing how Beyond has wandered a few feet away and is turning in a slow circle, staring up at the darkening sky like he’s never seen it before.

* * *

 

“It’s so…big,” Beyond breathes out into the expansive dome of the sky over the moor. He’s been in the city all his life, only having been to Central Park a handful of times. And it’s nothing like this, really. Though the grounds are well-maintained, it feels poised on the edge of something wild and free. The trees whisper in a slight breeze, only a few yards away.  

“Can we go into the forest?”

Lawliet looks back at him strangely a moment, “Alright. There’s a path we can wander down for a bit. Let me get us a lantern.”

The stable is largely empty, save for a quiet, tawny mare in a neat-looking stall. Lawliet mentions that the horse belongs to Wammy, as he takes out a heavy-looking lantern that looks a little old to be electric. The light bulb casts well, though. He throws a small flashlight to Beyond.

When they cross the first few steps into the forest, it becomes obvious that the lights are quite necessary. The shadows cast by the flashlights morph and meld into something Beyond’s eyes turns grotesque, but it doesn’t pick up his heartbeat. There’s something the soft, earthy smell, the occasional call of an owl that tells him there’s more to fear from what’s really _here_ than there is to fear from what he sees.

_Funny to find that comforting._

Over time, the sound of running water starts to sound in his ears, next to the soft pad of their feet against dead leaves. When it comes close to the path, in view of Lawliet’s lantern,  he steps off to squat next to it, “Does it go very far?” Lawliet only shrugs, and Beyond shines his light around, the stream extending off into the darkness over the forest.

“Look! There’s a rope in that tree,” Beyond’s flashlight catches the aged jute, dangling from a branch, “It’s got all that moss…wonder how long it’s been there. Did anyone ever camp out here?”

Beyond hops across the stream as soon as he locates an appropriately sized rock, eyeing the knotted rope, “Maybe they hanged themselves.”

* * *

 

L has been in the forest before, but never alone and at night. The footpath is difficult to make out by the lantern’s thin light, and L chooses his footing carefully, wary of knobbly, jutting roots and and loose stones. Discomfort squeezes at his heart the further they hike – he doesn’t like feeling so blind to his surroundings. It doesn’t help that Beyond trots a few steps ahead, as sure as someone being gently tugged along by a string.

Casting the lantern in the direction of every strange noise, L wonders at Beyond’s surge of bravery. He grew up in the city, in an unstable home, so maybe the forest seems blissfully peaceful and safe by comparison? Still, it’s peculiar to think he’s the same boy who cowered and cried at Marla Porter’s house.

“Look! There’s a rope in that tree…”

L follows the circle of Beyond’s flashlight, settling on the length grayish-green rope. It could easily be mistaken for a vine by someone not looking closely.

“Maybe they hanged themselves,” Beyond says calmly, even as he leaps across the stream to get a closer look. L grips the handle of his lantern tighter and follows. The stream is pretty shallow – even if he does fall, he should be fine.

“The Manor and this land didn’t always belong to Wammy’s family,” L says, joining Beyond at the base of the tree that the rope dangles from. “It was in the hands of some Duke at the time that Queen Victoria was crowned. They say he was a bachelor who threw a lot of decadent parties, but was also a terrible drunk with a terrible temper. He seems like the sort of person who would order someone hanged.”

L starts to feel better as he talks. A pattern, at last, and one that he recognizes. There are probably a lot of mysteries in these woods, stretching ages and ages back.

He turns toward Beyond, careful not to shine the light in his eyes. “Your eyes don’t see things out here? Scary things, I mean.”

* * *

 

“They do, it’s just…” Beyond hesitates, trying to pinpoint how the undercurrent of adrenaline, almost always present, has shifted here, “I know there’s real danger here, y'know? It’s not just something I’m afraid of that might not be real.”

_It’s nice to have a reason to feel like this._

“I also mostly see memories, or monsters,” Beyond realizes, flickering his flashlight over the trees that wear faces, “Here, I mean, I’ve never seen anything like this place. So anything out of place… I know. Plus, there’s no people out right now. Just you, and I know you’re safe.”

 _No one who might die, and I don’t have to know when._ It occurs to Beyond when he meets Lawliet’s gaze that _he_ might in fact be scared. He doesn’t look it, but he’s also more hunched up than Beyond remembers him looking before. Beyond reaches forward to squeeze his hand, then yelps.

“Jesus, Lawliet, your fingers are freezing! You know frostbite really happens to people, right?” He snatches the lantern from Lawliet to place it on the ground, rubbing his hands together overtop of the other boy’s icy fingers, “We should get back, right now.”

* * *

 

L left his gloves on the windowsill of his bedroom, and his fingers really must have got cold enough to go nearly numb. It takes a few minutes of Beyond’s hands, rubbing his own, for them to sting with blood and feeling again.

“I was too busy trying not to fall to notice,” he admits. “I’m not afraid of the dark, but I don’t like not being able to see where I am.” His eyes catch on Beyond’s, hazel and inquisitive. _Or where I’m going._

“But yeah, let’s go back.”

The cross the stream and head down the sloping footpath. Before they make much headway, Beyond puts away his flashlight and takes the lantern from L’s grip. “Put your other hand in your pocket. I’ll keep this one warm.” He curls his left fingers around L’s right.

L’s never had anyone hold his hand before – not Saskia, anyway. Not that he remembers. Wammy had tried, when L first came to live with him, but L wasn’t used to it, hadn’t liked it. It was a gesture meant to make him feel safe, he realizes now, but it only made him feel small, and easily squished. But Beyond is his age, almost his exact same size. Holding his hand isn’t so bad. It makes it easier to see where he’s going.

Back in L’s room, there’s a fire crackling in the fireplace, and on the nearby ottoman sits a platter with two mugs of hot chocolate and some caramel biscuits.

“Wammy must have seen us go outside,” L says happily, shucking his coat and boots and diving for the treats.

“He just brings you this stuff?” Beyond marvels, picking a mug up with a little uncertainty.

L shrugs. “Not all the time.”

“Still. It’s really nice he looks out for you.”

L nods. It is nice. The envy in Beyond’s voice isn’t lost on him. _Really nice._

They sit by the fire, sipping their drinks until they’re warm and toasty again. “I better get back to my Italian,” L says, climbing onto his bed and reaching for his books.

* * *

 

“Do you have any paper I could use?” Beyond asks, studying the expanse of the moor and the forest from the window.

“Note paper?”

Beyond shrugs, “Blank, if you have it? Note paper is fine too. I wanna start a map.”

Lawliet nods seriously, opening up one of his filing cabinets to produce a black-bound sketchbook, “You can keep it, if you like. I can’t work on unlined paper, so it’s not doing me any good. And a map sounds like a good idea.”

Beyond smiles so big it feels like his cheeks are stretching. The two of them set up camp on Lawliet’s bed; Beyond with his new sketchbook and a pair of books on tree varieties and survival tactics from the bottom of Lawliet’s shelf, and Lawliet with his notebook, blanket and Italian texts.

When the fire starts to die down Lawliet wraps himself in one of the quilts and passes another to Beyond with a yawn. _It’s comfortable, even though it’s so quiet._ Beyond manages to turn the page, despite his eyes drooping. _It’s really nice._ Is the last thought he manages before he slips into sleep.

_Beyond’s Wammy’s Map [ do not edit or repost]_

* * *

 

**December 20-21 1989**

L doesn’t notice that Beyond’s fallen asleep until he starts to drift off himself, his eyes burning, struggling to stay open and piece together the Italian he’s been reading for the past few hours

“It’s late, maybe we should –” He breaks off when he sees Beyond curled on his side at the far end of the bed, his head pillowed on the quilt, the sketchbook still open beside him.

 _Should I wake him up and send him to his own room?_ At any other time L probably would, but neither of them got any sleep the night before. _It seems pointless to disturb him when he looks so peaceful_ , L reasons, stacking his books on the floor beside the bed. And the bed is certainly huge, big enough for both of them.

He shimmies out of his socks and jeans and doesn’t bother to change out of his tee shirt, switching the bedside lamp off as he crawls back onto the mattress and snuggles under the quilt.

L doesn’t dream – that is, he does dream, but he rarely remembers them except for the occasional, fleeting image. But on this night his dreams are vivid and life-like. He climbs flight after flight of stairs until he finds himself in Marla Porter’s upstairs hallway. Marla drifts in and out of the bedroom doorway, her nightgown like something made of fog, her eyes white and ghostly.

“Mrs Porter?” L hears his own voice and it sounds more frightened than he feels. Her face looms closer and it isn’t Marla Porter’s anymore, but his mother’s. Saskia’s. Her lips are bluish, just as they were the day she did.

“Lawliet!” she cries out, reaching for him with fingers like gnarled tree branches.

All at once he’s flooded with fear, rattling doorknobs and searching, searching for a way out.

_“Lawliet!”_

* * *

 

“Lawliet!” dark eyes shock open, and the other boy sits up in a rush, almost knocking straight into Beyond’s forehead. Beyond squeezes the hand that’s still on his shoulder gently, “Nightmare?”

 _God knows I should know what those look like._ Lawliet nods, blinking slowly, breathing out into the night. Lawliet gathers his knees to his chest. Beyond hesitates before asking, “Did you see Marla?”

He nods, seeming not to trust himself to speak. Beyond rubs slow circles on his back, until the heartbeat pounding behind his ribcage slows. _I remember the first ghosts I saw at night._ Always with the yawning mouths, the dead-glass eyes. Beyond spends more nights awake than he does asleep, and has for a while. He draws the blanket a little closer around him.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” he says after a moment, wondering in a rush if he even ought to be here at all. _He seems alright with it for now._

_And it’s nice to have someone close by. It would have been._

* * *

 

L’s heart flips over in his chest once, then seems to settle into a less frenzied rhythm. Already, the images from the nightmare are sliding away, back into the recesses of his psyche.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Beyond’s hand at his back feels warm, even through the material of L’s tee shirt.

L shakes his head. “I can’t remember now.” He fists the quilt in his hands and brings it up to his chin, glad he isn’t alone but not knowing what to do with someone else here. Catching sight of Beyond’s sketchbook, he drops his quilt and picks it up, barely running his fingers over the partial map that’s coming together.

“This is good.” He traces a line against the river near the bottom of the page. “The river is called the Itchen, and it runs through Winchester. There’s a part of town called ‘the Weirs’ where the river flows between walkways and buildings, sort of like a canal in Venice. It’s nice.”

L quietly hands the sketchbook back to Beyond. “There’s a Frost Faire there a few nights from now, with ice sculptures, and games, and food stalls. Everyone from the school will go.”

“Oh,” Beyond’s eyes widen a little. “Can we go, too?”

Nodding, L leans back into his pillows, his eyes lighting on the back of Beyond’s curl-tousled head. “There’s something I was wondering…”

Beyond turns toward him, his profile vaguely visible in the dim light.

“Can you see your own death date?” L swallows quickly, then speaks again. “When you look in the mirror, or see a picture of yourself, can you see it?

* * *

 

“I can’t,” Beyond wraps his arms around the black-bound book, rocking slightly on the bed, “You know I always wonder if it would be better to know? Like I know that about everyone else, why not myself?”

_I don’t even know what I am, it might be nice to know at least that. But then again, it might make things worse. Probably would._

His eyes focus in on the date above Lawliet’s eyes, and he bites his tongue. Still. Lawliet’s got a _much_ further off date than most people. Then he notices the glitter of Lawliet’s dark eyes in the slight dawn, drawing to light another mystery.

“There’s another thing, though. My eyes are always red in the mirror too, no matter what— I mean, I see less that isn’t real when I’m not as on edge, or if I get sleep,” _I’m pretty sure._ Beyond is never certain how much of what he sees is real or no, but ten years have taught him to trust the names and the dates, and _nothing_ else, “But always the names, the dates, and my red eyes.”

“Asked my Dad if he knew why my eyes were red once,” Beyond shrugs, “He didn’t know what I was talking about. So I figured it was just…me again. Or whatever I am.”

He draws the quilt around himself, the words leaving him oddly raw and empty, despite how easy it was to explain them. _It’s still…different to be able to talk about this with someone._ He glances back, then realizes suddenly Lawliet might not at _all_ be alright with him in his _bed_ of all things. _Knowing what I am_. He shrugs the quilt off his shoulders, “D’you want me to go? I mean, I didn’t mean to fall asleep here.”

* * *

 

L tucks his quilt up to his chin. “You can stay if you want. I don’t mind.” It’s only when he says the words that he realizes that they’re true. “And I don’t think it’d be better to know your death date. We’re all going to die – knowing that should be enough, shouldn’t it?” He recoils a little at the sound of his own voice, the bluntness of his statement. It’s the sort of thing that makes other kids look at him funny, but Beyond doesn’t appear to react at all.

_Because Beyond is the one who’s used to being looked at funny._

“I wonder if there’s a scientific reason for why you see what you do,” L muses, yawning against the back of his hand. “There’s probably all sorts of things around us that we can’t perceive because our senses can process it. And there are real people who have super-senses, kind of. Like tetrachromats, those are people who can see millions of colors because they have four cone cells in their eyes. Or people with something called hypergeusia, they can taste flavors more intensely.” He trails off when he remembers that there’s a name for people who see things that aren’t there, too: schizophrenics. But schizophrenics see things that aren’t there, and Beyond sees something that absolutely is – _date of death._ Marla Porter is proof.

“Anyway,” he yawns again and stretches his toes. “Your eyes aren’t red to me, and everyone would remark on them if they were. They’re hazel. Sort of an amber brown mixed with green and yellow.” His own voice sounds very far away to him now.

As to whether Beyond responds or not, L doesn’t remember, wrapped up in the thick gauze of sleep, and the faint but comforting heat of another human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! More chapters in this story-beat to come, and remember we love comments and questions. :)


	3. December 23-24, 1989

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which the darlings go gallivanting to a frost faire.

**December 23 1989**

Despite the temperature dropping outside, the next few days leave Beyond warmer than he’s ever felt, the festive cheer settling over him in a sparkle. He and Lawliet spend most of the time together, making additions to Beyond’s map, playing board games. Beyond gets to see the twenty-some other children for the cookie baking event on the 22nd, but barely speaks to them, chattering away to Lawliet about the cave they found and the stories it might hold.

He doesn’t sleep much at night, his four-poster bed too cavernous and soft for his small body. But Lawliet proves to be the best of company during the day– they even agree on most of the movies to watch at night, cozied up in a quilt on Lawliet’s worn old couch. _It’s good. Really good_.

Beyond isn’t ready to believe it’ll last yet. On the afternoon of the twenty-third, he shrugs on Robert Porter’s jacket, yawning slightly. The kids are already starting to gather downstairs to leave for the Frost Faire, but it’s been a morning of seeing too many ghosts, and he doesn’t really want to stand close to their questioning looks. _At least not without Lawliet._

The walls look a little multicolored, their patterned blue stripes starting to bend when he stares. The angles look like bones, _neck bones_ , Marla’s face as she reaches for _Robert–_

“Ready?”

He jumps slightly when Lawliet comes up behind him, wearing a blue-knitted hat and matching mittens, “Hi. Guess we should go down, then.”

* * *

 

When they get on the rumbling school bus that will take them down to the village, they take seats in the far back. The other kids are loud and boisterous, giddy with Christmas spirit even as Roger skulks down the aisle, trying to calm them. Beyond’s face is more strained than usual, a nervous twitch in his top lip. He’s looked a little flattened all day, like someone who’s been stretched out and is having difficulty bouncing back into his true shape.

“Hey.” L peels off his mittens and grabs for Beyond’s hand. “You know about hand signals?” He makes a fist and rubs his thumb along the side of his index finger. “You do that, and I’ll know that you’re stuck talking to someone you want to get away from.” Now he makes his thumb and forefinger into a circle. “And you can use this one if your eyes start to get bad. Alright?”

Beyond nods, his eyes wide but a little calmer.

The town’s city center, with its narrow, cobbled streets and medieval buildings, looks all the more magical dressed in holly and fairy-lights. Troupes of carolers dressed in Victorian garb sing Christmas songs, and a variety of artisans have set up booths to sell their wares – everything from hand-knit jumpers to blown glass and beaded jewelry. Everyone looks happy and rosy-cheeked as they puff white air over their steaming cups of hot buttered rum.

It’s all a bit of a lie, a shred of a delusion, but that’s okay, L thinks. It’s allowed at Christmas. It’s _important_ at Christmas.

“What do you think?” L asks when they’ve clambered down from the bus. “I want to get a hot drink first.”

* * *

 

“That sounds great,” Beyond says, feeling a little steadier with Lawliet by his side. The stall owner hands each steaming paper cups that smell of caramel, “I’ve never had hot buttered rum before.”

 _It’s good_. He doesn’t even need to say it, they just exchange a smile and bury their faces into the steam. The melody of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ floats through the air, and Beyond hums along, it being one of the few traditional carols he knows. The other kids have mostly scattered to look at a wooden-toy booth, but a young girl with her brown hair in tight braids comes over.

“Hi Lars,” she rocks slightly back and forth on her laced-up brown boots, “And you’re Lars cousin, right? Beyond?”

“Yeah,” he says, smiling a little, “And you’re Sasha?”

Lawliet hadn’t told him her name, but she blushes slightly. _She definitely has a crush on him._ “Mhm, that’s me. How are you liking Winchester, good sir?”

Beyond has to fight not to laugh for a moment…she’s so earnest, “It’s really great.”

“Is it true you’re an American?” another girl, Abeline Harrington, a tad smaller than Sasha pops up behind her. Her wide brown eyes take in Beyond’s oversized jacket, but unlike Barrett, she’s a lot more curious than she is judgmental.

“I’m from New York, yeah.”

“Oooh, it’s quite different there, isn’t it? Is it dangerous?”

“Yeah, it really is. Lots of tall buildings– more even than London. And I guess so.” Beyond doesn’t really want to think about New York, not right now when things are at least a small bit peaceful. _I don’t need any reminders._

“Would you like to look at the toys with us?” Sasha asks in a quick rush.

Beyond exchanges a glance with Lawliet, who shrugs noncommittally ,“Sure, we’d like that.”

They linger over a stall– the shop owner already has her hands full trying to stop a five-year old from a local family from stretching out the slinkies. The crowd of kids has thinned out, and the balsa-wood toys can be freely admired. _I wonder if Lawliet would like any of these flying machine designs. Maybe next year._

“You and Lars really look alike, you know?” Sasha’s lips have that same shy upturn to them. _Better watch it or she’ll start crushing on me too_. Beyond shrugs a little, more focused on the wooden model of da Vinci’s helicopter.

“Yeah, but your hair is _really_ curly,” the younger girl, Abeline, chimes in, sproinging a curl with fascination, “How did you get it so curly?”

“I’m actually part slinky,” Beyond says dryly, and the two girls dissolve into giggles.

* * *

 

L watches Sasha and Abeline hug themselves with laughter, frankly mystified – at Beyond, too, for his comfortable demeanor. If a girl tried to touch _his_ hair, L thinks that he would probably slap her on the wrist for such a presumption.

But there’s a more pressing matter to gnaw at him; namely, that Beyond won’t have any gifts under the tree for him on Christmas morning. He might not be expecting anything, but even so, L knows it won’t feel good to be the only kid with nothing to unwrap. Already, L has spotted a puzzle-box that he thinks Beyond will like, and the stationary shop is still open, they probably have some good drawing supplies. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to sneak off and buy it all on his own, but he can put someone else to the task.

“I have to ask Roger something.” L points to Roger, who’s across the square watching an ice sculptor put the finishing touches on an emperor penguin. “I’ll be right back in just a minute.”

Roger’s actually quite understanding about the situation, and agrees to pick up some gifts for Beyond on L’s behalf. “Don’t worry.” He settles a large hand on L’s shoulder. “We’ll see to it that his first Christmas at Wammy’s is a memorable one.”

L thanks him and heads back to the toy stall, expecting that he’ll find Beyond still enduring Sasha and Abeline’s questions. To his surprise, the three of them aren’t there at all. _Where could they have gone?_ L shuffles through the crowd, on the look-out for the back of Beyond’s curly head.

* * *

 

 _Some of the kids here aren’t too bad_. Beyond thinks as he reaches for a handful of google-eyes. One of the booths features brown socks, pipe cleaners, red noses, and holly for making hand-puppet Rudolphs.

“You’re getting glue all over it, Beyond!” the weedy boy with the nasal voice, Walton, chastises him, with a slight note of fear in his voice.

“It’ll dry white, right? I want it to be snow.”

“That’s gross.”

“I think it’s just _great_ ,” Sasha simpers, and Walton blanches slightly. Beyond makes a mental note to shove them under the mistletoe sometime later, if that exists here. It’s comfortable, though. The chill in the air isn’t too much, the bustle almost drowns out the usual fuzz of memories.  Barrett keeps on the other side of the table, eyeing him warily. _They all don’t wanna mess with me. Or Lawliet._

Beyond pastes the bright-red bulb noses on as eyes. _I’ll show this to Lawliet, bet it’ll make him laugh._ He glances around, realizing that Lawliet still hasn’t rejoined them. He slips out from the crowd, Rudolph the red-eyed reindeer drying on his hand.

“Have you seen Lars?” he asks Roger, the ward, who is lingering by the carolers.

“I believe he was waiting by the bus– did you lose him?”

 _I hope not._ Beyond takes off at a run to the bus, where Lawliet is nowhere to be found, but he can see tracks next to the bus in the mud, and a small figure in the distance. He keeps running, the puddles splashing up to make his trousers damp.

“Hey!” Beyond is out of breath when he catches up with him, “Where’d you get off to? We made reindeer, look!”

* * *

 

With every plodding step he takes, L feels dismay and bitterness churn up in his gut. He should have expected this – that Beyond would decide to throw in with the other kids. Even with his peculiar eyes and visions, he’s better at fitting in with the group, practically a natural when it comes to laughing at their jokes. L knows he could fit in if he wanted to, too, but he’s never wanted. He’s always had more important things to tackle.

Still, the memory of Beyond waving that silly reindeer puppet at Sasha and Walton makes something swell up into his throat. _It was stupid, thinking we’d need secret hand signals._

It will be alright. Things will just go back to how they were before. He was okay then, and he’ll be okay now.

_“Hey!”_

L’s shoulders bunch up at the sound of Beyond’s voice and he walks a little faster. His nose is starting to run.

“Where’d you get off to? We made reindeer, look!” Beyond shows him the brown sock with the red eyes.

“I saw,” L says gruffly, continuing to walk at a brisk pace.

“Are you alright? Where are you going?”

“Back home.” It’s several kilometers back to the Manor, and his nose is running more than ever, but he can’t go return to town now. “You should go back to the others.”

* * *

 

“I don’t wanna go back. Not without you,” Beyond is already saying it to Lawliet’s back, his small spine hunched as he continues down the muddy road. _They’re not as important as you are. They don’t know what you know._

Beyond tries to catch up again, falling in step despite never having chased after anyone in his life, “Lawli, don’t be like that–”

“Like what?” he says it in a way that Beyond _knows_ he understands exactly what’s going on here. _Look, you’re the one that left me with them, not the other way around._ He grits his teeth and tries to grab Lawliet’s hand with the one that doesn’t have a sticky reindeer on it. The hand is snatched back, Lawliet’s face twisting into an ugly glare.

“Stop, I don’t want that foul glue all over me, ” his lip curls in a way that reminds Beyond far too much of the middle-class bullies in his inner-city school to stop his hand from clenching into a fist. _I thought you weren’t like that._

_I thought you were different._

Before he fully registers his impulse, the puppet in his hand crashes into a swinging punch to Lawliet’s stomach.

* * *

 

L has been training in Aikido for the last several years, but he’s never sparred without padding on before, and the blow to his gut is clumsy but anger-fueled, making him double over and think, for a split second, that he might actually vomit onto his shoes. He gulps the pain back and tries to catch his breath.

“Shit, Lawliet, I –” Beyond takes a step forward, hand out stretched. L grabs it, straightens up, and twists Beyond around into a turning wrist lock. He holds him immobile for a beat, then loosens his grip and gives Beyond a small shove.

“You – you _fucking_ hit me!” L stumbles on the curse as he holds his hands to his stomach.

“I usually hit first, but I shouldn’t have…” Beyond shifts from foot to foot. “I’ll go now.”

“No.” L tilts his chin up slightly. “I get to hit you back.” He pauses and licks his lips. _He wouldn’t have chased me all the way down the road if he didn’t want to stay friends._

“Let me hit you back now and we’ll go back together, alright?”

* * *

 

Beyond just nods once, head still spinning a little, wrist smarting from…whatever it was that Lawliet did. _Some kind of karate kid shit_. He spreads his arms, doesn’t even both to clench his stomach as he meets the other boy’s eyes warily. Lawliet makes a proper fist and gives as good as he gets.

His eyes water slightly when Lawliet’s fist connects, doubling over and exhaling. It’s not the first time he’s been punched in the gut, but it _never_ feels that nice, “Eye for an eye, right?” he coughs slightly, almost smiling at the fading pain.

It’s not all bad really. Feels _real_. Beyond likes getting into fights, even if he has gotten the shit kicked out of him more than a few times. Lawliet nods almost grimly, waiting for Beyond to catch his breath. They fall into step together, back towards the glow of the fairy lights in the dimming evening.

 _I guess he really is…something else._ Beyond struggles for the words to describe Lawliet, as their boots squelch in unison amidst the muddy earth.

“You throw a decent punch, for a rich kid,” he knocks his shoulder against Lawliet’s with a grin, and then catches his eye almost seriously, “Thanks.”

* * *

 

 _Eye for an eye –_ yes, but it’s not for revenge, not really. Not _just_ that. It’s for leveling the playing field. It’s for acknowledging each other as equals. L isn’t sure at which point they became that way – maybe it was only just now, with both of their fists buzzing and their stomachs sore.

“I’m a third kyu in Aikido.” He twists his shoulder back a little as they walk. “I’ve never been in a fist fight before, though.”

“Aikido? Is that the karate shit you did?”

“Yeah.” L shoves his mittens deep into his pockets. “D’ya want to learn?”

“Can I?” Beyond’s voice goes up an octave in excitement.

L nods. “I’ll start training again after New Years, probably.”

They walk in slow silence, neither of them feeling a particular urgency to get back to the festivities in the square. The faintest strains of “Silent Night” are coming from that direction, though, and under the cold, crystalline sky the song feels curiously appropriate, even though it’s not yet Christmas.

“Well,” L begins in a dignified way, as if he’s about to explain something very dry and factual. “Sorry I stropped off like that.” He pauses, and the next words are pitched much lower. “You looked like you were having fun and… I thought maybe you’d rather be mates with the rest of them, that’s all.”

* * *

 

Beyond very nearly feels his cheeks burn, fixing his eyes at the cobblestone road, “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have hit you, neither. Besides, the others aren’t like you. They’re just kids. They’d never understand the things I see. You’re different.”

“You’re seeing thing alright, then?” Lawliet asks, a little stiff, but still meeting his eyes.

“It’s been alright, for now,” he smiles a little at Lawliet, _helps to have someone that knows, I guess._ A sweet and spicy smell wafts on the breeze, and Beyond catches sight of a booth busy with other kids, “Is that gingerbread?”

Beyond can hardly believe this kind of event exists outside of illustrations in books. Of course, it’s messier than in the books, green and red candies all over the plastic tablecloths, and the houses the kids are making look mainly structurally unsound. Still, he and Lawliet take a kit each, and sit at the end of the table, gleaning a few looks from some of the kids, but none of them approach.

It’s easy enough to forget about them though, Lawliet seems adept at getting all the candy Beyond needs to decorate with, at least in part so that he can sample it all himself. Lawliet constructs his house quite neatly, but seems patently more interested in eating the gumdrops and jelly beans than pasting them into patterns.

“If you don’t watch it, your new nickname is going to be _Lawli_ pop,” Beyond snatches the box of lollipops from him before he steals another. _I need these to do at least the one tree._

“It’s a little narrow…looks more like a flat than a house,” the mousy girl next to Beyond says, more to her house than to either of them.

“Is it from New York?” Lawliet asks Beyond, but loud enough that the girl, _Lenore_ , perks up a bit.

“Yeah,” Beyond pastes on some licorice that ought to look like the door of a garage. It’s not too bad. The icing even looks like the winter snow, though the colors are a little bright for his neighborhood. _It’s an improvement, really._

“Do you miss it there?” Lenore asks, still not quite looking at him, but clearly directing the question at Beyond.

“You know…not a bit,” he smiles at Lawliet, adding a gingerbread chimney on the house that wouldn’t have been there in America, but somehow seems like a necessity.

* * *

 

The evening ends with carriage rides along the Itchen River, and L invites Lenore to sit beside them on the narrow bench. She doesn’t have many friends, L recalls, and is one of the orphans who was abandoned as an infant; until a few years ago, she lived at a children’s home in Manchester.

The horse’s hooves clack pleasantly against the cobblestones, bells jingling from the reigns, and none of them say much as they take in the sparkling fairy-lights strung over bridges and windows.

“I hope you have a very good evening,” Lenore says solemnly when the ride is over. She walks back to the bus alone, a pensive but content expression on her face.

“She seems alright,” Beyond says, and L nods in agreement.

Back in L’s bedroom at the Manor, L nibbles smuggled gum-drops while they watch _Indiana Jones and Last Crusade_ on VHS. By the time Sean Connery and Harrison Ford ride off into the sunset, L is fading, curled against the cushions that separate them on the sofa.

“I guess we should sleep,” L says through a yawn. “And then when we wake up, it’ll be Christmas Eve day.”

Beyond smiles widely at the prospect, loosely clutching a pillow to his chest. Then his smile fades a little as he seems to turn an idea over in his head. “D'you think I could sleep in here just tonight? I like my new room, but it’s hard to fall asleep. It’s a lot quieter than what I’m used to.”

L nods at once, finding that he doesn’t mind the idea much. “Alright. You can have your own quilt again, too. That way, neither of us will hog the covers.”

Just as they’re about to crawl into the massive bed, L spots the Christmas stocking he’s got tied to the end of the bed-post. It’s a long, knitted affair with a pom-pom at the end, and emblazoned with a sparkly-gold “L.”

“Hey, have you still got that reindeer?”

Beyond pokes his head up from his pillow. “It’s in my jacket pocket.”

L finds Beyond’s jacket on his desk chair and digs out the odd-looking creation; the dried glue has made it a little misshapen, but it has its own certain charm. Rooting around in his desk until he finds some yellow construction paper, L uses scissors to cut out a crooked letter “B,” which he tapes to the reindeer sock.

“There.” He tucks the reindeer over the knob at the top of his bedpost. “Now you have a Christmas stocking, too. B.”

* * *

 

**December 24, 1989**

Beyond sleeps soundly through the night, wakes early with more energy than he’s had in days. _Night without nightmares…that’s lucky for me._ Lawliet is still and corpselike, the blanket rising and falling on top of him. Beyond quirks a grin at the stockings at the end of the bed.

 _I ought to get us something to eat._ He slips out of bed quietly, finding his way to the kitchen where sweet smells are starting to waft out . The woman in charge, _Jinny Kelson_ , is quick and sharp amidst the chaos, but Beyond manages to ask for scones and jam, which are given to him amidst scoffs about being a ‘ _cheeky American’_.

Beyond doesn’t mind, really. Lawliet will like the scones.

“Happy Christmas Eve day,” Wammy runs into him at the stairwell, a large envelope tucked under his arm.

“Happy Christmas Eve!” he slows his run, wanting to get up the stairs quickly, but not wanting to offend the old man.

“You’re up quite early, aren’t you, Beyond?” Wammy’s moustache twitches over his smile, eyeing the basket in Beyond’s arms “Did you steal those from the kitchens? Father Christmas won’t take kindly to that.”

“They gave them to me, I swear!” he protests, but Wammy is already chuckling slightly, “Besides, they’re not all for me.”

“Ah, I see.” Do you think you could pass this on to Lars, if you’re heading upstairs?”

The envelope is heavy with more than a few pages. NYCPD is scrawed in pen, just in the corner of it. Once Beyond gets in the stairwell, he slips into an alcove to peek inside.

_Just a peek. If it’s about me, I ought to know. I have to know._

_And Lawliet would show me, anyways._

_NYPD Report, Case 01047858_ [do not edit or repost]

The thought brushes through him with only a hint of hesitation, of regret. As soon as he starts reading it, his surroundings almost black out and crystallize . His heartbeat pounds right out of his chest, and the staircase feels, _looks_ like it’s melting in under him.

_‘…with small scratch marks along the neck area…’_

Did he scratch anything? Beyond remembers birds, crows clawing at him after his father vanished into blackness. He remembers their screams, their red eyes like _his._

He doesn’t remember screaming, but he wouldn’t be surprised.

_There were so many monsters I saw that night._

His heart stops in his throat the moment he sees the last line of the report. ‘ _The child has not been located at the time of this report, but is considered the primary suspect for the homicide.’_

_They knew I was there they saw me they know._

He flips a few pages forward to see his name, his profile, his fucking _fingerprint_ from his birth certificate on a file. He takes the stairs one at a time now, memories or murder-visions flickering under his eyes. He doesn’t remember, he does remember the white of a stubble covered neck. He remembers the red on his hands. The rusty-raw smell of blood everywhere.

_I’ve got nowhere to go. Lawliet will know and he’ll have to….he’ll have to…._

Beyond doesn’t know where that sentence ends, but he’s already at the door to the bedroom.

“Is that breakfast?” Lawliet is up, eyeing the scones and jam, forgotten in the basket in Beyond’s hand. Beyond sets it on the filing cabinet.

“Yeah,” his voice, he’s surprised to hear, isn’t small and terrified. Just cold. It scares him a little, but not enough to betray anything, “This is from Wammy.”

Beyond drops the report on the bed, the envelope atop it, in front of Lawliet, then walks into the bathroom without a word, the smell of clotting blood still choking his nostrils.

* * *

 

B’s acting peculiarly, and L knows it’s probably got nothing to do with the scones, but with the clipped sheath of papers he’s just dropped on the bed.

Hitching up his pyjama bottoms, L crouches down to sift through the NYPD’s report, which Wammy requested a few days ago on L’s behalf. Mid-way through the first page he feels his stomach start to drop, dread trickling in to take its place.

_B is their only suspect so far._

Here, too, there are details that B either left out or didn’t remember in his account to L. Scratch marks on the neck – _Was he trying to stop the bleeding? He told me there wasn’t any blood on his hands._ Profanities and threats – _He did say that when it gets bad, he has no idea what’s real and what’s not._

Leaving the report on his desk, L enters the bathroom and finds B kneeling on the rug, staring at the patterned tiles as if their design might be the only thing holding him together.

“What are you gonna do with me?” The words are despondent, his back hunched as if expecting a blow.

“Me?” L is caught off guard by the question. “I’m helping you, remember?”

The eyes that turn on L aren’t relieved, just flat, looking far away and into nothing.

“I know the report looks scary, but it’s just the police doing their job.” L sits uneasily on the lip of the bathtub, unsure of what else to do but talk. “They inspect a scene and draw conclusions, but they have to find ample evidence of their conclusions before they can charge someone. And even after charging someone, there’s another process to decide whether it goes to trial.” He infuses his voice with the breadth of authority he feels down to his bones.

“Yeah.” B stands up very slowly, moving as if he doesn’t trust his body to do what his mind says. “Think I’ll go to the woods for a while.” He looks at his feet instead of at L. “If it’s alright.”

_Does he think I’m going to stop him?_

“Sure,” L says, and B turns around stiffly to leave the room.

After his footsteps fade away there’s only the faint dripping of the bathtub, and L himself, left with the feeling that what he said was of no help at all.

* * *

 

The whispy remains of the morning fog clump over the moor, as a small figure, hands clad in red mittens, skitters into the obscurity. Beyond watches himself running, he feels himself running, his boots cut into the forest as he hits the edge. He feels the branches, whipping back against his thighs as he pushes through them, but he’s running from ghosts, running with ghosts whose eyes follow him as he passes. They’re whispering. _Oh god_ , he thinks, and they echo it back.

 _Are you a fucking calendar?_ His mother shouts. _Four days before Dad’s day_ , he remembers, barely. Beyond stops running for a moment, lets her ghost contort its ugly face into a melting scream. _She’s gone now, she’s gone and I’m safe here and I’m not safe from anyone but I’m safe here–_ he exhales, trying to get a hold of himself, violently shaking.

 _Where am I?_ All the trees look unfamiliar, flickering to black. Beyond tries to turn, but can’t quite manage it. The whispers start gaining pitch, and he clamps his hands over his ears, willing himself to listen to the pounding of his pulse.

 _You can’t hurt me. You can’t you can’t_. He forces his eyes open, because in his peripheral vision he can still see parts of the outlines of trees, the vague notion of something tangible that he cannot imagine around him. He tries to breathe out, the skeleton-shapes gathering into another wave of what could be memory or monster.

A man who he remembers and doesn’t, greasy blonde hair and small, squinting eyes morphs out from a darkness shaped like vast concrete in all directions. The man’s lips are moving but Beyond can’t see what he’s saying and he’s growing _teeth_ sharp _sharp_ that close in on him from all sides.

 _Get out_ GET OUT _get out_. He can hear himself that time, just barely. When he drops to his knees, he can feel the frost through his pants.

Beyond remembers feeling something else. The rise and fall of a chest too quickly underneath him. Something warm and liquid under his hands that thrashed. Something cool, metal being slipped under his fingertips. The sounds, the sights are all a black-bone mess, but there was a pulse. One that slowed to silence even as tried to find its source.

There’s a gurgling noise in his ears that doesn’t sound like a man’s dying gasp, doesn’t sound like a memory.

The river. _The river_. Beyond opens his eyes, staggers towards the small creek, almost falling to his knees when he arrives at the bank. He barely knows what he’s doing when he drops his mittens, plunges his hands into the icy water, but the sensation seems to know, his body knows what his eyes do not.

He blinks and the blood that was never there fades from his hands.

* * *

 

From his window high in the Manor, L watches B head for the forest, his fingers idly picking apart a scone and occasionally bringing a morsel to his lips. The best way to make B feel better, he’s sure, is to find out who murdered his father.

But of course, it’s not going to make B feel better if it turns out that the murderer is _him_.

Even if he did punch L in the stomach, and even if he does see monsters and death and all other manner of horrible things, L simply doesn’t believe that B would murder someone on purpose. And even in a heightened, manic state of crumbling sanity, L doesn’t believe that B would commit an act of violence against his own father. He must have been terrified in that moment, but what reason would he have to be terrified of his father, a man he speaks fondly of? No, there was someone else there who made B afraid – the person who that unidentified shoe print belongs to.

L changes into jeans and a tee-shirt and sets out in search of Wammy. He’s not in his office or any of his other usual haunts within the Manor, so L goes back for his coat and mittens and ventures outside, finally tracking him down in the stables.

“Hello, Lars.” Wammy is running a curry-comb through Jubilee’s coat, who nickers lightly at the sight of L as he enters the building. “Did you need something?”

“Yes.” L climbs up on the rails of Jubilee’s stall and stretches his hand out far enough to stroke her velvety muzzle. “I’ll need to follow up on Beyond’s case in person. Can the three of us fly to New York City soon?”

Wammy looks meditative as he continues to comb the horse’s coat. “I take it that the NYPD’s fax provided more questions than answers?”

L nods. “B is wanted for questioning. Maybe more.” His gaze narrows, his fingers tightening around the stall rails. “But I _know_ he didn’t do it. In fact, the way that the deputy formed his conclusions was flatly irresponsible. My guess is that he wants a closed case and thinks it will be easy to pin it on a kid.” L hops down, sending up a puff of hay-dust. “So can we go, then?”

“I’ll look into arrangements on Boxing Day.” Wammy hangs up the comb and heaves a saddle blanket over Jubilee’s back. “Where is Beyond now? Have you told him what the report says?”

“He went into the forest to be alone, and yeah, he looked at it right after you gave it to him.”

“I see.” Wammy peers down at L through his glasses. “I suppose I ought to have known better on that score.”

L sniffs and straightens up. “Yes. He’s very sensitive.”

“Is he?” Coming ‘round the other side of the horse, Wammy leans an elbow on the stall. “If that’s the case, perhaps it’s best to check on him.” He voice softens in that way that it does when it’s just the two of them. “Not everyone who goes off to be alone actually _wants_ that, L.”

Blinking, L realizes at once that Wammy is right. B probably isn’t the sort of person who wants to be alone at all. When he’s alone – that’s when the monsters and death come.

“Thanks,” he blurts out, running for the stable doors, then up the hill and into the forest, the ground still blanketed in drifting tendrils of fog.

* * *

Beyond is hunched in front of a fire watching a pile of flames flicker in front of him, occasionally leaping into forms he remembers, when another voice joins the chorus of whispers. _Fucking damn it._

There’s someone calling his name.

“B? B?”

Beyond is unable to stop the slight yell that comes out of his mouth, his mind folding into itself. _Shutupshutup I can’t see any more than this can’t hear any more I fucking can’t._ He closes his eyes and that’s worse, _that’s so much worse_. He forces them open, watches the fire and the faces dancing insider it.

“Beyond?” the voice is more insistent now, it feels familiar.

“That’s my fucking name, god knows I can’t see it,” he says it a little louder, “Come and fucking get me.”

_Maybe it’ll stop just stop it’s your eyes it’s just_

_What you see._

_But it wasn’t, that time. It wasn’t._

“B, keep talking. I’m not going to hurt you–”

“I have a fire, you can’t fucking hurt me, you can’t, you can’t.”

There’s a pause, a blessed silence for a moment where even the whispers don’t reach him. A shudder starts in his spine. He almost misses the voice, for a moment. Something about it seemed different. Then it comes again.

“B, keep talking so I can find you,”

“Okay,” he shivers, light starting to cut through the thinning fog, “Whatever you are. Just. Follow the fire.”

The crunching grows closer, downstream of the river through the motley patterns that don’t quite have any kind of shape. Beyond blinks when the small mop of dark hair comes into view.

“Lawliet?” the figure in front of him looks solid against the green-and-grey mist, but then again. _Sometimes they always do._ He regards the numbers carefully, “L Lawliet.”

“B…” not-Lawliet seems careful, like he’s approaching a frightened animal. _Did he walk that way in Marla’s house?_ B doesn’t remember. Lawliet’s ghost is nicer company than his mother, his father though. He tries to stand but his limbs are numb, wobbly. Lawliet does rush over then, puts a hand that is solid and warm to steady his back.

_Oh._

“You’re you,” he mumbles, feeling the weight of Lawliet’s hands settle on his shoulders. _Touch. The things I can feel– those are never wrong._ He shivers violently, realizing why the fire has failed to keep him warm at all.

“There’s no fire, is there?” he says in a very small voice, leaning into Lawliet’s warmth.

* * *

Through the forest, L follows the footpath that’s barely visible beneath the fallen leaves and twigs, to say nothing of the lingering fog. He looks for footprints and broken branches, the sort of thing a trained tracker might be able to spot, but he’s no tracker. He’s probably been in the forest no more than a dozen times.

“B?” His voice seems to not carry far, absorbed by the foliage itself. “Beyond?“

From a direction he can’t quite pinpoint comes a faint answering call: _“Come and fucking get me.”_

He turns toward it, hiking further into the snarl of heavy trees. On an overcast day like today, hardly any light manages to squeeze its way to the ground.

“B, keep talking so I can find you.”

He hears nothing for a moment, and wonders if he’s gone the wrong way completely.

"Follow the fire…”

 _What fire?_ L sniffs the air, but there’s no hint of wood smoke, just damp and earthy smells.

A trickle of water catches his ear and he moves toward it, remembering how B had been interested in exploring up and down the stream. He follows the stream for a bit until he rounds a fallen tree and stumbles into a clearing. There’s B, crouched over a heap of stones and sticks and staring at some deathscape that no one else can see, his face twisted oddly. “Lawliet? L Lawliet.”

“B…” L hears his own uncertainty.

B rises on unsteady feet and L rushes toward him, helping him to stand. B’s whole body is shaking – not just from his ordeal, but from the cold. And no wonder – there’s snow in the forecast and the temperature dropped considerably overnight.

“There’s no fire, is there?”

L shakes his head. "No. But there’s one inside. And a hot bath, too. Let’s go.”

He keeps his arm around B’s waist as they trek down the hill and through the trees, B’s hand scrabbling weakly against his shoulder. Back at the Manor, L takes one of the back staircases up to the third floor and his room, where he steers B toward the ottoman closest to the fire. B stares into the flames, seeming immediately transfixed.

“Stay here and get warm. I’ll run you a bath.” L shifts a little from side to side, gnawing at the end of his thumb. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you alone.”

* * *

 

The flames are glowing and dancing, just as they were in the forest, but this time Beyond can feel their heat, feels it right down to his bones. He shivers as the numbness starts to creep back out of his fingers. He keeps his eyes on the fire, trying to block the images out.

_It’s alright. Nothing’s going to happen here._

“Bath is ready,” Lawliet says softly next to him. _How long has he been here?_ Beyond’s reflexes are still a little slow, but Lawliet helps him up, takes him in to the bathroom that’s fogged with steam. There are no ghosts here. It’s safe like Lawliet’s small palm, warm in his.

 _Small piece of safe_ . Beyond feels his muscles relax, the colors in the room gaining clarity. _He’s not leaving me alone. He’s not._

“You’re cold and muddy too,” Beyond murmurs slightly, a selfish part of him not wanting to let go of Lawliet’s hand, though he does. He takes off his clothes in the corner of the room, slips into the warm water that’s full of bubbles, not knowing what to say to Lawliet. Not knowing what would be _enough_ to say. When he looks up, Lawliet has stripped down to his pale, slightly dirty skin.

“Budge over a bit. I should wash too.” Lawliet slips over the lip of the tub, carefully arranging his limbs. Beyond makes space for him, his chest swelling with gratitude. The tub is roomy, enough for the two of them to sit with knees close to their chest, toes just barely touching.

“Thanks,” he says quietly, his toes scrunched up next to Lawliet’s in the hot water, “A lot. No one’s ever gone after me like that before.”

* * *

 

L wiggles and waves his fingers through the hot water and reclines his head back on the lip of the tub. He doesn’t mind not being able to stretch his legs out, he usually sits in the bath with his knees tucked up against his chest, anyway.

The warmth has brought life back into B’s voice and skin color. “Thanks. A lot. No one’s ever gone after me like that before.”

Even though he has nothing to be embarrassed about, L feels a little sheepish, as if this is thoroughly unearned praise. “How old were you the first time you ran away from home?” he asks, his head still tilted back. He knows that coming to London can’t have been the first time B ran away.

“Seven.” B utters the word after a beat of hesitation, and L senses that he’s still gathering himself together, grounding himself back in reality.

“Oh. I was five.” He lifts his head far enough to see interest creep across B’s wan face. “I didn’t think of it as running away, really. I wanted to see what would happen, I think. We lived in Oxford, where my mother, Saskia, did research on computational linguistics. She was always very busy and often left me with the neighbours. The Doyles, an elderly couple. They were nice enough, but they watched telly for most of the day, which I found boring.”

L sits up straight and splashes a little water over his knees before continuing. “I just wandered the campus for a few days, sleeping in classroom cupboards and nicking food from the dining halls.” Thinking back, L doesn’t remember being scared, just _interested_. The students, the professors – what were their lives like? He spend a lot time wondering just that. “Saskia didn’t even notice I was missing until the Doyles asked after me.”

His eyes re-focus on B, and he curls in on himself to rest his chin on the bony knob of his knee.

“So, I guess no one’s really ever come after me, either.”

* * *

 

Lawliet’s voice is matter-of-fact, but there’s something about his posture that’s a little more sunken in than his usual confidence.

“You’re not going to run away from here, yeah?” Beyond asks, suddenly afraid. Lawliet shakes his head.

“No, here is quite alright.”

“That’s good,” Beyond almost smiles, _if he believes it… he’s gotta know,_ “Your mum kinda reminds me of mine. I tried running out cause I just was tired of her sleeping or screaming at me. I would have made a go of it sooner, probably, but I didn’t mind the school I went to. Plus, Brooklyn has winters, and even though my house didn’t have much heat, it was still something. It was a stupid move even if she was always forgetting to get food. S'what my dad said, anyways.”

“Mum gave me hell because the police brought me back, but I don’t think she noticed I was missing,” Beyond drops his hand, watching the ripples in the water coalesce red, “I think she might have killed me if I stayed after my dad….after his day.”

 _Is that what happens to murderers?_ He doesn’t know.

_Lawliet…he won’t kill me though._

_That’s the only thing I know. He’s safe._

“Still. If you ever needed to run away– I’d go after you,” Beyond says with a quiet certainty, Lawliet vivid and clear in his vision, “I’d go with you, if you wanted.”

* * *

L smiles a little at the proclamation, though it’s not lost on him that B is being deeply earnest. “Does that mean you’ve haven’t got plans to run away from Wammy’s?

B nods vigorously, sending drops of bathwater flying. “I want to stay.”

“Good.” L smiles a bit wider, then tilts his head back and falls into thoughtfulness again.

 _He thinks our mothers are alike?_ Imagining Saskia’s reaction to such a comparison makes the smile fade from L’ lips. Can the top researcher in her field really compare to a drug addict? Or maybe all that B means is that neither of them had had particularly  _sweet_ mothers. The kinds that bake cakes and sing lullabies.

“Saskia wasn’t so bad. She always made sure I had lots of good games and books, and she let me eat all the sweets that I wanted. And when she was in a good mood she like to ramble about all the progress she was making in the lab, which was always interesting.” L reaches for a washcloth and starts to soap it up. “She taught me a lot. How to not need her, most of all.”

He runs the washcloth over his arms and chest, building a good lather. “And your mum – it sounds like she was afraid of you.” He dips the cloth back in the water, then wrings it out, rinsing the suds on his skin away. “But I’m not.”

Putting the washcloth and soap aside, L nudges his toes against B’s a little. “I told Wammy that I want to go to New York after Christmas so I can solve your Dad’s case. Will you come with us?” He swallows quickly, licks his lips. “I’d understand if you’d rather not.”

* * *

 

Beyond hesitates a moment with the bar of soap. Lawliet is almost tense, meeting his eyes like he’s not sure what he ought to do and Beyond brushes his toes back, trying to smile. _He really wants me there._

“I wanna go where you go.” is what comes out. That much he’s sure of, “But I’m not sure if I should go. What if I…what if someone else gets hurt because of me?”

Lawliet looks pensive, cheek against his knee, “I still don’t think you’ve killed anyone, B. And I’m going to prove it. I haven’t been wrong yet.”

_He’s so sure. I wonder if he’s ever known anyone like me before._

_Well. Obviously no one_ like _me, really._ Beyond blinks his eyes, flexes his fingers, which have faded to their normal white. There’s still a terrifying uncertainty in the back of his mind, but it seems distant, for now. “I’d like to. I’ll think about it.”

Lawliet nods seriously, taking out the plug out of the tub, but then his hand hovers over the faucet, “Have you ever had a bubble bath?”

B shakes his head, and Lawliet reaches for a tall bottle of a thick, “Do you want to? Sometimes, I like to take a second after bathing, just to warm up.”

Beyond nods at Lawliet as he refills the tub, smiling back at him. Before long, the tub is full of mountains of white fluff growing in the hot water beside them, shaping them into hills and valleys of imagined landscapes. Beyond slips into stories about them, mystery and history, and Lawliet adds details, his hands deft at shaping the bubbles into channels and cityscapes. For a moment, it’s easy to forget the morning, and what might come after. And Beyond is almost hopeful, when he towels off, though he can’t quite place why.

_Maybe we’ll make more stories together._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More to come!..... but until then we are legit begging for a comment of any kind? Please? XD :D


	4. December 25, 1989

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S THE CHRISTMAS CHAPTER GOOD TIDINGS VERY VERY GOOD TIDINGS FOR ALL

**December 25, 1989**

L always wakes up early on Christmas morning, but never this early – never when it’s still mostly dark out, the sun still below the horizon but just beginning to brighten the sky. It’s the quiet that wakes him, the gentle stillness that snowfall brings when it arrives in the night, drifting down in giant, fluffy flakes.

B is curled into himself in the bed beside him, nothing but the very top of his mussy head showing above the quilt. They’d gone to bed rather late, after an excellent supper and an impromptu and rather hilarious performance of Charles Dickens’ _A Christmas Carol_ , put on by a couple of the visiting teachers and five or six students. Barrett Laurent had played Scrooge, and both L and B had been forced to admit to each other that he was excellent in the role. By the time they’d gone to bed, those dark moments in the forest seemed quite far behind them.

Now L throws his blankets aside and tip-toes over to the window, rubbing the frost away with the sleeve of his tee-shirt. The Christmas lights are still turned on, their glow diffused by the fresh layer of snow, a crisp, untouched whiteness that stretches all the way to the moor and the forest beyond. It’s all so peaceful and lovely, L’s heart can’t help but be lifted with pleasure.

That pleasure is doubled when he turns back around and sees that his Christmas stocking, tied to the foot of his bed, is so heavy it stretches nearly to the floorboards B’s reindeer sock is still perched on a bedpost, but a new stocking – knitted like L’s, but emblazoned with a gold “B” – dangles below it, also stuffed to the brim.

 _Wammy… well done._ The stockings will be filled with sweets, mostly, and a couple of oranges, tucked down into the toes.

“B!” L takes a running leap onto the bed, bouncing on the springs. “Wake up! It snowed, come and see…”

_A Wammy's Christmas_   [do not edit or repost]

* * *

 

B blinks the sleep out of his eyes, grinning ear-to-ear at Lawliet’s excitement. _Guess snow is a much bigger deal here, huh?_ The glowing lights against the blanket of white does bring a small jolt of happiness to his heart. “It’s nice. So do the kids do a snowball fight or something later?”

“Maybe. Looks like Father Christmas left something in our stockings. I think Wammy might have gotten one for you, too,” Lawliet grins back at him when his jaw drops at the beautifully coordinated, overfull stockings, “Happy Christmas, B.”

“Happy Christmas,” Beyond grins back. The two of them attack their stockings on the bed, swapping a few varieties of candy. Lawliet explains to him what malteasers are, and Beyond trades him for licorice allsorts, which he decides he quite likes.

Before long, the morning light has flooded through the window and it’s time to take breakfast. Lawliet puts on a red-and-green patterned sweater for the occasion, Beyond a knitted reindeer sweater from the bottom of Lawliet’s drawer. The grand dining table is abuzz, many of the children swapping candies and trinkets from their stockings. Breakfast is a sweet oven pancake with golden syrup, sausages and fresh fruit, which they take sitting next to Lenore at the end of the table.

The children gather around the towering Christmas tree in the saloon, which has a respectable number of gifts. A few of the older children, including Lawliet and Barrett, sort around in the piles, making sure that all the children have a gift before the opening begins. Lawliet passes him a box wrapped with a gold bow, smiling at Beyond’s surprise. _I guess all the kids get something._

Beyond realizes with a jolt that the tag is from Lawliet. _I didn’t think he would get me anything. He didn’t need to…_ he tears off the green, red and gold, paper gently. Inside the shoebox is a neat set of pencils and a ruler, perfect for completing the map he’s been working on, as well as a beautiful brass navigation compass.

 _I didn’t get him anything though_. He blushes a little without meeting Lawliet’s eye, wishing he had thought a little more about what day it was.

“Aren’t you going to give your present to Lars, Beyond?” Wammy’s eyes twinkle as he produces a blue-wrapped box with a silver bow.

“But I didn’t—”

“I think he’ll like what you chose for him quite a bit.”Beyond nods wordlessly, taking the package over to Lawliet, who has set aside a fancy box of chocolates from Sasha, and is contemplating a mid-sized box from Wammy.

“Thanks for the compass. You didn’t have to get me anything,” _just being here is enough._ Beyond’s eyes are downcast, cheeks still burning a little, “It’ll really help with the map, though. This is for you, I guess.”

* * *

 

Cheers.” L gives B a knowing smile as he accepts the gift, fully aware that it was Wammy’s doing. He leans over far enough to whisper into B’s ear, “I didn’t pick out your gift myself, either. I sent Roger to do it.” B nods a little at that, relief flickering in his eyes.

The gift turns out to be two books, one called _New York Underground_ , the other a book on code-breaking that L’s been pining for but had trouble tracking down: _Cryptography, Secrets, and Ciphers._

“Brilliant!” He shows their covers to B. “I already own _London Underground_. It’s by a historian and researcher who uncovers the criminal histories of major cities, including secret passages, hidden graves, smuggling routes…that sort of thing. You’d like it a lot, I bet.”

They flip through the books while all around them, the other kids rattle wrapping paper and sit back to smile, satisfied with their own hauls. Sasha has already fled to her room to hide the tea set in fear of it breaking, and Betsy has her new CD walkman headphones affixed to her ears, nodding along to a song only she can hear. On the settee next to Wammy, Roger looks rather incredulously at his box full of off-white and cream polonecks.

The rest of the day would typically be spent playing with new toys and games until Christmas dinner rolled around, but with a good layer of snow on the ground everyone wants to go sledding.

“What do you think?” L stacks his gifts into a neat pile. “Want to go outside with the others?

* * *

 

The snow on the moors is cleaning and lighter than the Brooklyn snows, but still packs nicely. After taking a few turns with Lawliet on the painted wooden toboggans, Beyond gets to work with the building material. _There’s enough space here that I can build a good-sized one. Maybe it’ll be useful if a fight breaks out._ Beyond has built shelters for at least a few seasons of Brooklyn winter-wars.

“Are you making a _snowman_ , Beyond? Cute,” Barrett sneers. _Right on fucking time._

“It’s a fort, dumbass,” Beyond meets his eye coolly, “Not that you would know how to build a decent one. I would bet you can’t do shit with your hands.”

“Mighty big talk from the American.”

“I’m backing it up,” Beyond gestures at the start of the foundation, “looks to me like you’re the one who’s all talk.”

Some of the kids have gathered round at the confrontation curiously. Barrett makes a complicated expression, realizing that he can’t save face without agreeing to Beyond’s challenge. _Bit off more than you can chew this time, Scrooge?_

“Fine. Best fort before tea-time wins.”

“You can take all the time you like, I’m still going to beat you.” Beyond says it loud and clear at Barrett’s retreating back.

“What was that about?” Lawliet returns from a slide down the hill, as Barrett storms off, calling over some of his friends. A few of the children linger close to Beyond and Lawliet’s small foundation, as if waiting for instruction.

He turns to Lawliet, “So how’re you at building forts?”

Lawliet, as it turns out, is good at strategy and knows a little about structural stability. With the help of Harold, Sasha, and even Lenore, they put together a respectable domed wall, with a few outcrops for lobbing weapons. The design turns out a little like the medieval castle in the painting in the front hall. Stocky, dependable, and strong.

After some time, both forts tower next to the sledding hill and the two opposing teams meet in the middle. Beyond sizes up the other fort with a smirk. _The turret may look fancy, but it’ll be the first to go._

“So how _are_ we going to decide whose fort is superior?” Barrett regards Beyond and Lawliet’s creation somewhat contemptuously, “Call in Mr. Wammy to judge?”

“You’ve really got another thing coming,” Beyond smirks as he reveals the snowball in his hand. The challenge dawns on Barrett just before the snowball smacks him in the nose, “Last fort standing wins!”

* * *

 

Before he met B, L would have regarded ice-forts and snowball fights with a certain amount of derision; the snow is pretty, but he usually has better things to do than linger for hours in the cold. But doing something industrious actually warms up his small, chilled body, and as he, B, and the others build up their structure, a familiar fire takes hold in his belly: his team is going to beat all the others and win.

B, who L soon gathers has been in dozens of snow battles, instructs Lenore on how to make the perfect snowball: “’Bout the size of a tennis ball, as dense as you can possible get it.” He squeezes in demonstration.

L asks Harold to run to the stable for a pail of water, which he does promptly without asking for details even though it means taking a barrage of Barrett’s snowballs along the way. He’s being so helpful that L suspects that he’s guessed who was behind his Christmas Gameboy gift.

“What’s the water for?” Sasha asks, crouching close to his elbow, her nose a bright-red button in her usually pale face. Just minutes ago, she took a snowball straight to the conker.

“If we can pour some water over the walls of the fort, it will turn to ice and help solidify them.” He pats the side of the finished dome. “But we’ll have to try to do it without the other team seeing, or they’ll steal the idea.”

When Harold gets back they manage to do just that, with Harold and B rushing out to lob distraction projectiles while L and Sasha quickly see to the water. After that the battle kicks off in earnest, with children darting in and out of the fort enclosures, their arms heaped with snowballs. L’s arm is good from tennis, and he and B make a concentrated effort on Barrett’s turret until it starts to crumble, finally sliding apart in a soft heap.

“Fuck!” Barrett screams, which makes everyone laugh – even his own team members.

* * *

Beyond throws back his head and laughs, grinning conspiratorially at Lawliet as the fort comes to its inevitable end, snowballs still flying back and forth. The smile flits off his face when he sees a figure in a heavy jacket and what may be dress shoes struggling across the snow, waving an umbrella.

_Great. Teachers are the same here too._

“Mr. Laurent! We don’t tolerate language like that here, and certainly not on Christmas,” it's Roger Ruvie. Beyond already knows they aren’t gonna get along, “This is preposterous– snowball fights are dangerous and strictly prohibited! And on Christmas of all days, too.”

Barrett shuffles, trying to protest, but mostly looking shamefaced and angry. His team members have more or less abandoned him, trying to dry off or avoid Roger’s eye. _Oh, fuck, whatever._ Beyond lobs the snowball still in his hand straight at Roger Ruvie’s stiff neck.

“Who on earth–” Roger Ruvie sputters, eyes narrowing as he scans Beyond and Lawliet’s team.

Beyond raises his arms a little, giving Roger Ruvie an appraising look, “Forts were my idea. Don’t give that asshole all the credit.”

A chorus of gasps and whispers go through the kids. Some of them standing next to him even take a step back, but Beyond stands his ground as Roger stomps towards him with an air of righteous fury.

“The American, hmm. This impertinence will not be tolerated! Rabble-rousing is met with _severe_ consequences at the Wammy House, I assure you.”

“It was just a snowball fight, not a riot,” Beyond shrugs with an air of nonchalance as Roger manhandles him towards the school, then glances over his shoulder for a last yell, “Good stuff, team!”

There is, much to Roger’s annoyance, a mild cheer from both teams.

* * *

 

B enduring some kind of punishment on Christmas is absolutely out of the question, as far as L’s concerned, so after he’s thanked Sasha, Lenore, and Harold for their help with the snow battle, he heads back inside to find where Roger’s dragged him B to.

L hears them before he sees them: Roger’s stuffy voice – the one he uses for his most _insufferable_ lectures – travelling from his office and down into the hallway that curves around to the Saloon.  Roger Ruvie, forever trying to play ‘bad cop’ to Wammy’s ‘good cop.’ He’s not a bad fellow when he manages to pry the stick out of his arse.

“That’s right, fill all these pages with ‘I won’t disrupt Christmas’ in your neatest handwriting.”

“But I can probably fit a thousand or more of those!” B protests, and understandably so.

 

_Disrupting Christmas_ [do not edit or repost]

“Then you best get started right away, young man.” Roger follows that with a big, triumphant sniff, turning with a smile as L enters the office without knocking.

“Lars, I was happy to see you play with the others for a change.” He adjusts his glasses and runs a hand through his graying hair, sending a sparse flurry of dandruff down to his poloneck sweater – one of the new cream-coloured ones, thankfully. “Though I wish it weren’t at the cost of engaging in ruffian behavior.”

B, sat at Roger’s desk with a pencil and a sheaf of papers, tucks his chin into his shoulder, his watchful eyes turned to L.

“Roger,” L begins, and Roger winces a little, having never liked how L calls him by his first name. “I think it’s very kind of you to try to keep Christmas disruption free, but you’re disrupting it right now, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean by that?”

L points at B. “You’ve disrupted my cousin’s Christmas by giving him a punishment for something all of us were participating in. And that means you’ve disrupted _my_ Christmas, too.” And then, with the air of someone who’s scarcely had to answer to a single authority in his life, L marches over to the desk and pushes the pencil and papers right off the edge and into the rubbish bin.

* * *

 

Beyond gapes a little at Lawliet, hardly believing the other boy’s guts. Miraculously, too, Roger seems to be putting up with it, shifting back and forth with a frown, but not doing anything about Lawliet throwing out the pages, either. _Guess no one can tell him what to do. Must come with the famous detective thing, or something._

“I suppose you _were_ all of you involved” he nearly sputters, still staring at his pencil in the bin.

Lawliet nods quite seriously, “Moreoever, it was Barrett’s insult that started the entire war.”

Lawliet neglects to mention that it was Beyond who threw the first snowball, but Beyond keeps quiet about that, standing up slowly in his chair. _Just move slowly, get out of doing this._ Roger looks tensely from Lawliet, back to him.

“In view of it being Christmas… I will accept an apology for the snowball, as opposed to the more befitting punishment,” Roger says stiffly.  

“Sorry about that, Mr. Ruvie,” Beyond looks him in the eye with utmost sincerity, which seems to take Roger by surprise, “I guess I just wanted to get your attention.”

B knows full well, a little innocence now might give him a little leeway for more fun later on. Besides, Lawliet might be sticking out his neck a little here. _And I’d rather get back to having fun with him._ He muffles a laugh as Roger shooes them out into the hallway.

“Thanks for that again, though I probably would have just drawn some garbage instead of writing lines, which I’m sure would have gotten me into deeper shit,” he grins at Lawliet, “And great idea with the ice.”

* * *

 

“Yeah, I probably won’t be able to get you out of future punishments, just so you know.” L smiles and slips down the hallway in his sock feet, back toward the saloon. “But Roger was being a Scrooge.”

In the saloon, the other kids have started to gather, their cheeks still pink from the cold. Jinny’s kitchen is busy all day with dinner preparations, so lunch is a nice one o’clock tea time. A long table has been brought in and set up along one of walls, heaving with platters of finger sandwiches, scones, biscuits, fruit and clotted cream. There’s a massive silver urn of hot-water, too, for making pots of tea or cups of hot chocolate.  

L and B both pile their plates high, grab cups of hot chocolate, and go to sit at one of the long sofas near the fire.

“Mmm,” B smacks his lips with relish as they dig in. “The jam’s not as amazing at that stuff at Harrod’s, but it’s still really great.”

Some other kids join them in short order, all of them clearly a little awe-struck by B, wanting to know about snow in New York and whether he’s ever met any celebrities.

L chews on a ginger biscuit to calm the unfamiliar flutters of anxiety in his belly. The others want to make friends with B, and that’s alright. It doesn’t mean that he’s going to stop being friends with L, or anything. That sort of thinking is completely irrational.

 _Because we’re_ best _friends._

The thought comes just as he swallows enough hot chocolate to warm him down to his toes, and his face heats up unexpectedly, too. The idea of having a ‘best’ friend always struck him as childish and silly, not the sort of thing he could be bothered with. And he hasn’t even known B long enough to really declare him ‘best’ anything, has he?

Puzzling over it, he slowly lowers his plate into his lap and curls a finger into his mouth.

* * *

The kids on his team seem to have forgotten any kind of wariness of him or Lawliet at the moment, and are at the edge of their seats on sofas close by. Even a few members of Barrett’s team are hanging by the fringes, and a couple of them congratulate him on the fort.

 _It’s nice. If a little odd that they think I’m anything special._ Beyond had a few friends at his school, if you could call them that. Mostly they were misfits who didn’t have anyone else, and they knew he was a little bit tough. He wouldn’t say they were interested in him though, just willing enough to put up with his peculiar knowledge of names and occasional confusion over the visions in exchange for safety in numbers. _More of a freaks have to stick together thing._

 _None of them were nice, really. Not like Lawliet._ The other kids seem nice enough. _They don’t know too much about the world, though_.

“Did you ever meet Bruce Springsteen? Or Tom Cruise?” Sasha asks with glowing eyes.

“Look, I only know who one of those guys is, and my neighbourhood wasn’t the best, so nah. I’ve never seen ‘em.”

“What’s Times Square like?” Harold rubs his nose, and takes a nibble of a scone.

“Big.”

“Is it true how many gangs there are?” Harold’ eyes widen, a little bit of scone falling on to his lap.

“Yeah, it’s true. There’d be gunshots at least once a month,” Beyond draws his knees close to himself, not really wanting to think of home right now. Focusing on Christmas, the here and now, had been easy for a moment.

 _Easy to forget you’re fucking wanted for murder._ The paintings almost flicker a little,

“What happened to your parents?” Harold asks, and Lenore has the good sense to rap him on the shoulder.

“Harold, you don’t just _ask_ a person things like that,” her voice is surprisingly fierce, “If you don’t want to tell us, Beyond, you don’t have to.”

“Thanks.” he mumbles, then nudges Lawliet, a little overwhelmed by the attention. Wondering if he should hand signal. He settles for asking instead, “Did you have any games upstairs? Maybe we can play something.”

* * *

 

L doesn’t need a nudge to pick up on B’s growing discomfort, visible in the way he draws his knees to his chest, and how he twists his napkin in his hand and sets his cup on the table just a tad too hard.

“Games later tonight might be alright.” L scoots to the end of the sofa and collapses into his very best slouch, remembering that some of the other children are under the impression that he’s sickly. “But I’m awfully tired right now. I think I need a bit of a sit down.”

“I’ll help you upstairs then.” B bounces to his feet and waits for L to amble ahead, murmuring a “see you later” to the other kids.

“You don’t mind leaving, do you?” L asks once they’re on the back staircase to the third floor.

B shakes his head. “Too many questions all at once.”

“Yeah. Thought so.”

L’s room is quiet and smells pleasantly of oranges and chocolate. B unpacks his new drawing supplies and gets to work on his map, while L cracks open his new book on coding. They work industriously for a while, until the sun all but vanishes from the room and the Christmas lights flicker on outside. At that point L turns on his television and finds a channel that’s playing some of the classic Christmas programs, like _A Charlie Brown Christmas._ They settle in and watch until the clock chimes that it’s a quarter to six.

“I better change for supper.” L yanks open the door to his wardrobe and starts rifling through it. “Roger will fuss if I wear a tee-shirt to church.” He finds a pair of reasonably un-creased dark gray trousers, a red-and-navy jumper, and a white button-down to wear beneath it. “You can borrow anything you like, but since you’ve just arrived I doubt anyone will say anything if you wear your regular clothes,” he explains to B while shucking off his tee-shirt.

“We’re going to church?” B sounds baffled by the concept. Maybe even slightly worried.

“Yeah, we’ll take the bus there after supper.” L pauses. “Well, no one _has_ to go, but most of us do. The service is really nice, as is the choir, especially.” Pulling the jumper over his head, he turns to regard B seriously. “But don’t worry, I’m an Atheist.” Saskia always said that religious faith wasn’t just stupid, but dangerous.  

* * *

“You’re a what?” Beyond takes a nice shirt from Lawliet’s drawer. _I figure if he’s dressing up, I ought to as well._ “Look, I don’t give a damn about God, and I don’t think I ever will.”

“I don’t believe in a god. That’s what atheist means,” Lawliet says, not unkindly. Beyond makes a mental note to read more books.

“Oh, okay. That’s okay, then,” _Church will probably be okay with him there._ Beyond has at least a few memories of church with his mother in her sporadic bouts of going clean, and none of them pleasant. He pushes that thought to the back of his mind over dinner.

The food, at least, is a wholeheartedly pleasant distraction. The grand hall is richly decorated with holly and ivy, glowing candlesticks and sparkling decorative bells. Dinner is a sumptuous roast with mashed potatoes, parsnips, and Yorkshire puddings, which turn out to be squashy breadlike rolls. Beyond decides he quite likes them. Lawliet mainly nibbles at those.

Unable to decide between the berry trifle, the sticky toffee pudding, pudding, and the chocolate tarts, Beyond and Lawliet agree to get all three and share them between the two of them.

 _Pretty sure I’ve never been this well-fed in my life_ , Beyond thinks, licking the pudding off his spoon absently.

Beyond is just starting to feel warm, full and sleepy when Roger herds all the children out to the bus. The cathedral is close by, at least, but Beyond can’t help a slight twist of dread in his stomach, when the wooden doors have similar carvings to the small Catholic Church in his neighborhood.

The stained glass is a lot more well-kept, though, and glows in the reflection of the Christmas day candles. And Lawliet is right, the choir has a soothing pitch. _The one back home could barely hold a tune._

No confessional booths too. _Small mercy_ , Beyond thinks with a touch of irony. His mother had been prone to shove himself in those booths, force him to talk to greasy-haired men. He’d sometimes talk about death, and laugh in their faces when they fed him platitudes about eternal life.

Beyond sometimes wished he hadn’t laughed when Father Daniel’s obituary had turned up, right on the day Beyond had whispered to him.

 _But I knew. And they didn’t know shit._ The man who goes to speak looks a little like Father Daniel, for a moment. Beyond blinks and the aged-looking minister comes in to view. He shifts a little closer to Lawliet. _It’s alright, just. Stay here._

* * *

 

The minister’s sermon is nice – a few mentions of Jesus Christ, but lots of secular stuff about compassion and charity for the many people in the congregation who only go to church on Christmas. Mostly, L just enjoys being inside the Cathedral itself, with it’s long nave and arching, Gothic ceiling. The incredibly detailed statuettes and carvings on the high altar have always impressed him the most, though as the minister’s sermon goes on he finds himself wondering whose job it is to keep them clean.

In the middle of that idle thought, L feels B shift against him, seeming to shudder. His head is tipped down so that his gaze is trained on his own lap, his chest rising and falling a little faster than one would expect.

_Seeing things again?_

If someone experiences visions of death, L reasons that a church from the 9th century would be a likely place for them to show up.

He doesn’t want B to scream out or start crying – that would be horrible for everyone, B most of all. But he doesn’t want to touch B, either; for all he knows, that might make it worse. He bites his lip and thinks over his options, then carefully lays his hand along the top of his thigh, palm up and open. _Grab it if you need to_ , he thinks, and realizes that they really should sit down and memorize more hand signals for situations like these. Before they go to New York for sure.

B doesn’t move for a moment, but after a beat he uncurls his fist and takes hold of L’s hand, then almost immediately let’s go and makes a circle with his thumb and forefinger.

 _Oh_ – B does remember the signal, then.

L’s sitting at the end of the pew, thankfully. He gives B’s elbow a quick tug, indicating that he should follow, then grabs his coat and slips quietly out of his seat.

* * *

 

Beyond blinks his eyes against the flash of faces, tinged with blood around their necks, one after the other. He doesn’t look up while Lawliet leads him out, though it’s already calming his heartbeat to know he can get out. Go somewhere safe. _With someone safe._

They sit together on a bench outside while Beyond tries to take slow breaths. It works surprisingly well, especially with the rhythm of Lawliet’s pulse in his hand.

“M’alright, I think. Thanks,” He swings his legs back and forth on the wooden pew outside of the sanctuary, “S’just church reminds me of my mum.”

The strains of the choir’s ‘O Holy Night’ float out between them, which is soothing. _I remember this one from that night with my Dad._ They had spent a handful of Christmas’ together, but only once did they have the money to go out and buy a gift for Beyond’s mother. His father had seemed childishly delighted when Beyond had found the right gift. _He wanted to do it right._

 _He still left before New Year’s though_ . His Dad wasn’t the best father. Beyond knows this from the number of times his mother screamed about him being a _worthless piece of shit_. But he tried, sometimes. Beyond’s vision clears slowly to the grey-and-gold of the cathedral stonework. Lawliet looks solid and real beside him, and he smiles encouragingly. Beyond smiles back.

“I want to go to New York with you,” he mumbles, but his voice gains strength as he looks at Lawliet, “I wanna see where it happened, so I can know what happened. I think seeing it will help.”

* * *

 

Once again L smiles a little bit, but not too much. B’s tone of voice is too serious for that – he’s probably afraid, and L doesn’t blame him.

“It will be better this way, I think. You’ll have real answers.” Real answers about who killed his father, at least. The other mysteries – B’s visions, the death dates – L doesn’t know how to even begin to tackle those, and thinking about it too hard is both frustrating and a little frightening. Who would he even ask to find answers? What possible book could he consult?

The questions leave him with a curious sense of loneliness, and he bows his head, sobered, when he realizes that B must feel this way all the time.

All around them, snow is softly plopping off the cathedral’s roof and the surrounding trees. The temperature is warming again; by tomorrow, the remnants of their snow fort will have shrunk to mush.

“Let’s get on the bus.” L’s voice finally breaks the quiet. “The others will be out soon enough.”

When they’re back at Wammy’s and up in L’s room, he immediately gets out of his dressy clothes, hangs them back up in the wardrobe, and pulls on a long, plaid nightshirt that was a gift from Roger. B’s hand-drawn map is spread out on L’s desk, getting nearer and nearer to completion. L holds it up for careful study and turns to B, who’s changing into an extra pair of L’s pajamas.

“It’s good.” He rustles the paper a little and sets it back down. B’s smile looks more natural now, less like it’s been propped up on a foundation of worry.

“So.” L shifts a little and finally walks over to the sofa, perching on the end of it. “I hope this Christmas was mostly alright, anyway?”

* * *

“Yeah,” Beyond takes the opportunity to squeeze Lawliet in a grateful hug, which he feels says more than he really can. Lawliet seems to accept the contact more readily, squeezing him back gently and smiling easily when they pull apart.

“Best Christmas I ever had by a long shot.”

“I’m glad,” Lawliet doesn’t even ask, just gets out the other quilt and they settle in on either side of his huge bed. Lawliet’s breathing settles down fairly quickly, but Beyond is still turning thoughts over in his mind. _I guess we’ll be in New York tomorrow._

Beyond rolls over on his side, catching sight of his blood-red eyes in the mirror on the armoire. He blinks, no images come up.

 _It’s nice, for once_. _Better enjoy that while I’m still here._ _For as long as I can still be here._ He closes his eyes for at least one more restful sleep.

 

_B’s Map, Complete_ [do not edit or repost]

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMMENT TO LEAVE GOOD TIDINGS THANK YOUUUUU <3


	5. December 26-27, 1989

**December 26 1989**

L has never been to Heathrow on Boxing day before.

The airport is thick with holiday travelers, but most must be flying domestic because their flight to JFK airport is only a little over half-full. L and B take a pair of seats in front of Wammy, with B settled in by the window. L usually likes that seat for himself, but once he hears that B has never been on a plane before, he insists that B get the best spot. 

“So big,” B breathes, looking up and down the aisles and then peering through the window at the tarmac. “S’wonder it even gets up in the air.”

“I’ve flown to New York before and it’s long and boring. But at least they’ll show a movie. And we have snacks.” L’s foot nudges his backpack full of leftover Christmas sweets. 

“Yeah.” B drops his voice and peers through that crack in the seat at the back of Wammy’s head. “Been meaning to ask, but why’s Wammy dressed like that, with the black trench coat and all?” 

“Oh, right. Should have told you.” L blinks. It’ll take some getting used to, solving a case with someone other than just Wammy at his side. “He’s Watari right now. Just an alias he uses when we do casework, so no one connects us to the school.” 

“So I should call him Watari during our trip?” 

“Yeah, if you can remember.” L smiles and settles back into his seat. The flight attendant is going through the safety procedures in case of a crash landing, and B’s eyes have started to widen a little. 

“Don’t worry,” L says with authority. “It seems scary, but the odds of dying in a plane crash are one in eleven million. And it’s something like one in forty-three thousand odds that you’ll die in a car crash.”

* * *

 

_ Damn, he sure knows his numbers _ . Beyond leans back and buckles up his seat-belt as the plane starts to move. The energy of liftoff takes his breath away, forcing him back in his seat as the plane tilts, takes off at a diagonal.

_ Wow. _ He presses his face to the window as the city of London grows small in the distance, Big Ben shrinking to the size of a toy under the cloudy skyline. He glances back at Lawliet, then shifts over so that the other boy can see out the window. 

“This is  _ amazing _ .”

“It is something, isn’t it.” Lawliet leans next to him so they can both see clearly. Beyond shares a smile with him as the plane crosses into cloud cover, and then gasps when it breaks through to endless blue.

_ I coulda never dreamed it would look like this. _

The plane is showing  _ Back to the Future _ on screens at the end of the row, and the attendants hand out plastic headsets to tune in to the audio. Lawliet remarks that they’re probably showing the film to plug the ‘unnecessary’ sequel, but that the first was a rightful success. 

Beyond loves it, as well. In the break between films, they are served small sandwiches, bags of pretzels, and honey-roasted peanuts. The scent of cigarette smoke starts to roll in from the back rows, which is both relaxing to Beyond, and the opposite. It reminds him of home. He eyes Watari’s grim trenchcoat from between the seats again.  _ If we’re going back home….it won’t be all that nice, even with Lawliet there.  _

Beyond knows his neighbourhood though, and isn’t afraid of it.  _ It’s the neighbourhood that ought to be afraid of me, now _ . He glances back at Lawliet.  _ He might know….karate, and be quick to stab me with a fork, but will he be okay in New York? _

_ But we’ll have each other’s back. And if we both do…it’ll be okay. _ Beyond had at least a few allies like that, stick together, stay out of trouble. And Lawliet gives him an even better idea of how to do that. 

“Those hand signals worked well in the church. We should have some just in case, for Brooklyn. I dunno where we might end up going, but we should have one to tell each other to get out, or fight if we have to.” he keeps his voice low, then a thought occurs to him,  “And I’m guessing I shouldn’t….look like me there. At least not until we find out what I did.” he stops suddenly, wondering if Lawliet will want him around at all.  _ What does a detective do to learn what happened? _

* * *

 

_ Fight? _ L wrinkles his eyebrows together and suppresses a smile. B’s been watching too much American telly if he thinks that detectives go around getting into fights, especially ten-year old detectives. Still, he reckons it’s not a bad idea, just the same. Especially if it makes B feel more confident. “Sure, we can work on more hand signals.” 

He looks B up and down carefully, taking in the dark, curly hair that he wears a little longer than most boys do. “As for a disguise, we probably shouldn’t dye your hair or anything, but if we just bought you a girl’s coat and hat wear over your regular clothes, that might work.”

Expecting B to hate the idea, L pulls back in his seat slightly, but B only nods, agreeable enough.  _ Maybe it won’t be that hard to get used to working with someone else, after all,  _ L thinks with a smile. They spend the rest of the flight working out hand signals, and by the time the seat belt sign blinks back on, they’ve memorized nearly a dozen.

Flying West is a strange sort of time travel, and when the plane touches down, it’s only just noon in New York. Wammy has arranged for a sleek black Mercedes, driving it through the slush-covered streets of Queens and into downtown Brooklyn. L looks out at the tall buildings with interest; it’s nowhere near the size of Manhattan proper, but it’s still pretty impressive. 

“This is where you grew up?” Truthfully, he was expecting something more destitute.

* * *

 

Beyond shakes his head, the familiar sights of the downtown strip coming into view, “Not here. I’ve caught a few movies at that theatre though. My neighbourhood’s a little more…south I think? Bit of a walk from here.”

“We’ll probably need to visit tomorrow, if that’s alright with you.” Lawliet says evenly. Beyond nods with grim resolve.  _ Going to have to face up to everything sometime. _ He twitches slightly as his father’s grey eyes flicker on the seat behind him. He grips his nails into his palm to focus on the sensation.

Wammy (or Watari, Beyond mentally corrects himself), drops them at Macy’s to pick up some clothing to fit Beyond. He keeps his hair tucked under Watari’s spare hat to stay under the radar before that. Despite them being girl’s clothing, Beyond takes quite a liking to a pale blue sun hat with a blood-red bow. 

_ Goes decently with the blue coat, anyways. _ Beyond wouldn’t wear them day-to-day, but it’s fun to play dress up, fool other people’s eyes for once. 

They check in afterwards at the Sheraton, Brooklyn, which Beyond has thought about sneaking into on multiple occasions just to see what’s behind the shining glass doors. The rooms are luxurious as he expected, and the city looks almost as map-like as it did from the plane.  _ I can’t believe I grew up here _ . He tumbles down on the bed next to Lawliet, eyeing him curiously. 

“What now, huh?” Beyond asks shyly, eyeing the additional files and tapes that ‘Watari’ passes to Lawliet. His hands are itching to snatch them up, but then again, his knees shake a little bit too. He presses them together, focusing on Lawliet’s dark hair.

* * *

 

L shuffles through the files and sets them on the hotel room’s desk, taking a quick glimpse of the view before turning back to face B. 

“It’s only mid-afternoon, so I think Watari and I will head down to the precinct in charge of the case and see if we can talk to the Chief Inspector.” He makes brief eye contact with Wammy, who, wisely, hasn’t yet removed his trench coat. 

“Really?” B’s eyebrows lift with interest. “You just walk in there and they’ll work with you, just like that?”

L slumps a little, jamming his hands into his pockets. “It’s not that easy. Watari poses as L’s agent, and I pose as Watari’s nephew, who’s helping him cos he’s got vision problems. And then we usually have to talk to each other in Russian so they don’t realize what’s actually going on.” He shrugs. “Luckily I’ve solved some cold cases for the NYPD already. That’s how I was able to get the crime report from them in the first place. Anyway…” L sits back down on the bed next to B. “Will you be alright staying here if we go out for a while?”

“Yeah.” B shuffles his ever-present deck of cards between his hands. “I’ll keep myself busy, don’t worry.” 

L gives him a smile. “Great. We’ll try not to be long.”

* * *

 

It turns out that they’re not gone for long at all. The 73rd precinct is located in Brownsville, the neighborhood of Brooklyn with the highest crime, and also the neighborhood that B grew up in. From their brief drive through the area L can see that this part of the city is rough; even the police cruisers are kept behind a high, chain-link fence in a weed-choked parking lot. The precinct building is fairly new but decidedly mean and ugly, as if the architecture itself is trying to assert its dominance. 

“B grew up around here?” It isn’t really a question so much as a realization. 

“It appears so.” Wammy guides their car into a visitor parking space. “Did you not read up on the crime statistics ahead of time?”

“No, I did.” L chews on the edge of his thumb, suddenly unsure of what he wants to say. “Anyway, let’s go in and see if Inspector Clarke will meet with us.” 

At front reception, Wammy announces himself as Mr Watari, which earns him nothing but a blank look from the young woman behind the desk. When he makes it clear that he’s Detective L’s surrogate, though, the officer standing guard nearby perks to attention. 

“Detective L? Like, the real one?” He asks with interest. 

“Yes.” As Watari, Wammy speaks with a clipped, barely-discernible European accent and wears a pair of small, dark-lensed glasses. “I informed the Chief Inspector that I would be in the city after Christmas. Can you please tell him that I’m here to see him?”

The officer chews on his bottom lip, eyeballing Wammy’s dark trenchcoat and L, solemnly holding his hand. “Who’s the kid?” 

“My nephew. I am legally blind, but he assists me.” Wammy’s smile is far more shrewd than the one he usually shows to the world. “I find him far more effective and better-trained than a dog.” 

The officer finally nods. “I’ll go tell someone you’re here.” With that, he disappears through a pair of double doors.

_ “I guess we ought to have called, first.”  _ L says in Russian, feeling irritated. Wammy only nods once. 

The officer returns with a thin, reedy man dressed in plainclothes. He’s got a gun holstered on his shoulder and a badge clipped to his belt, though. 

“I’m Deputy Inspector Jenkins,” he announces, hitching up his trousers as he walks closer. “So, you’re Detective L?” 

“I’m his surrogate, Watari. L does not meet with the public.” 

“Why are you here?” Jenkins doesn’t look hostile, but his posture and expression are far from friendly. 

“To meet with the Chief Inspector. L has been in contact with him about case 010147858.”

Jenkins’ brow wrinkles even further, and he crosses his arms across his chest and takes a wide stance. “He’s busy right now. I suggest you call and make an appointment, if you really are who you say you are.” 

_ “Let’s go.” _ L gives Wammy’s hand a brief tug.  _ “We won’t get anywhere here today.”  _ Scotland Yard might be used to Watari walking through their doors by now, but the NYPD is obviously going to need eased in. 

“Of course.” Wammy gives a slight bow of his head. “An excellent suggestion. Enjoy the rest of your day, Deputy Inspector Jenkins.” 

If nothing else, L takes pleasure in the look of confusion that settles over Jenkins face as they head for the exit.

* * *

 

The view from the heights of the Sheraton is what Beyond focuses on, sitting cross-legged on the bed and trying to consider what’s to come as something distant, abstract.  _ Maybe I’ll just stay here and he’ll find out what happened. _

Beyond’s instincts prickle, though, and he’s sure the road is far from over. In the suitcase he’s packed the large black sketchbook that he had used to draw the map of Wammy’s House. To distract himself, he takes out the pencils and tries to focus on the blocky shapes of the looming skyscrapers.

[ ](http://68.media.tumblr.com/e5e6d5d675a64999cfb3a0d939e41cf1/tumblr_ogm6b813PZ1vxcoq1o1_1280.jpg)

_ Looming Skyscrapers _ [do not edit or repost]

 

_ Reminds me a bit of Columbia.  _ Beyond hadn’t gotten off of the freighter ship much, but used to climb the shipping container to get views of the city. His strokes become more abstract, into the mountainous waves that used to crash the sides of the vessel at night. 

Beyond liked those nights. No one was around if he needed to scream. And sometimes Jim, one of the galley-hands, would bring him extra soup. He hadn’t been afraid of Beyond. Not really. 

The drawing takes shape, and it doesn’t look altogether much like the skyline.  _ The boxes are all wonky. _ He scribbles a date on it all the same, as if it marks something.  _ Another day, I guess. _

_ Take ‘em one at a time. _

To pass the time, he lays out his worn deck of playing cards to a game of solitaire. He kind of cheats, the way Leo, the electrical engineer taught him to. Backtracking after a loss, keeping the whole deck in mind. ‘ _ The whole thing is lady luck anyhow, boy. You might as well stack the deck any way you can.’ _

_ He was a good guy. Wish his date hadn’t been so soon. Wish I hadn’t told him. _

But he had, and for that matter, he probably wouldn’t have gotten off in London if he hadn’t let that split. The sailors were a little too superstitious to want to keep him around, after that.  _ At least… Lawliet happened because of that. _

It’s hard not to think that’s a good thing. Beyond smiles, in any case, when the door opens, though Lawliet mostly looks slightly irritated, “How’d it go?"

* * *

 

L tosses his jacket onto the desk chair, then flops into it, pulling his knees to his chest just as soon as he’s shed his shoes. 

“We didn’t get past the front doors,” he tells B, noticing that he’s got his sketchbook and pencils on the bed beside him. Perhaps that’s the reason B looks a little more serene than he was when L and Wammy left him. "That Deputy Inspector Jenkins, he stopped us at the door. Was oddly hostile, in fact.“ L tugs delicately on his lower lip, thinking. “Seemed like he was unaware that the Chief Inspector has been in contact with L, which is rather curious."  

"Jenkins?” Trouble swims up in B’s eyes, and he goes silent for a moment before asking: “Did he ask about me, or mention me?”

“No,” L says firmly. “He asked why we were there, first. Then Watari mentioned your case number and he seemed eager to get us out of there. Told us Inspector Clarke wasn’t in the office.” L rocks back and forth slightly, thinking intently. “I think we’ll just have to call Clarke directly, first thing tomorrow." 

B nods at that but seems, for now, to have nothing further to say.

L tilts his head back and lets out an eye-watering yawn. "Anyway. Wammy’s in the room next to ours. I think he wants to go straight to bed, but we can stay up if we want. The TV should have HBO." 

He sorts through the assortment of hotel brochures arranged across the desktop, finding the one for room service. "Have you ordered food in a hotel room before? It’s brilliant.” He flops on the bed next to B and flips open to the page listing the desserts: strawberry cheesecake, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, hot fudge brownie sundae, and something called a ‘lava cake.’

“You want anything special?”    

* * *

 

Beyond tries a lava cake– rich chocolate fudge, and  _ much _ better than the gritty, overly sweet kind he had gotten when his dad had taken him out to restaurants a handful of times. He also tries Lawliet’s cheesecake, which is creamy and smooth, if a little tart. Both of them are more fond of the lava cake, as it turns out. 

The television is showing a rerun of  _ The Hitcher _ , which neither of them have seen before. A serial killer turned hitchhiker facing off against an ordinary driver who he’s marked for dead.

_ They both want their epic showdown… _ Lawliet’s words whisper back to him as he watches a severed finger turn up in a burger. Knife in his pocket. Beyond’s stomach lurches, remembering the  _ knife in his hands–  _ knowing what the driver feels when his eyes widen in confusion.  _ It’s righteous confusion, though. _

_ He was framed– and I…I don’t know what I did. It might be right to lock me up.  _

The movie’s events leave him both profoundly grateful he doesn’t have anyone chasing him, though the part with the waitress is campy enough not to trigger any memories. Horror flicks tend to amuse Beyond more than frighten him. They’re a nice distraction when they do, though. Lawliet snorts a little at the finale, when the killer leaps through the windshield of the driver. 

“Completely unrealistic. But jarring.” 

They both stay riveted for the ending though– when the driver is forced to shoot down the killer who hunted him.  _ It’s the ending to expect _ . When the television flickers off, the image of the greasy blond-haired man flickers into his vision again, the knife at his hands. Beyond blinks his eyes sharply, and pulls the covers overtop of himself, focusing on the fabric of the quilt, the warmth of the bed. 

It’s not easy to focus. With the last sunset of the film still burned into his eyes, Beyond can’t stop thinking about who he understands better– the killer or the driver?

Beyond doesn’t know the answer to that either.

“Good movie,” he says absently, as Lawliet flicks off the light. 

“It was alright. Enjoyable enough.”

“What’s the scariest case you’ve ever solved?” he rolls over to stare suddenly through the darkness towards Lawliet. 

* * *

 

L pauses for a moment, arms wrapped around his shins. He isn’t sure whether he should reveal to B that he’s mostly solved cold cases – it might make B worry about his abilities to solve his father’s murder. But the number of open cases he’s solved _ is _ growing, they’ve just all been in the UK. 

“Scariest?” He picks at the edge of the comforter. “Gemma Humphries, I suppose. That was last year. Her body was found in the Itchen River not far from Wammy’s House, and she’d been strangled and raped.” He swallows on the last word a little. “She was only thirteen, so that made it scarier.”

He blinks and thinks back to that cold November day, how he’d heard the police sirens alarmingly close to the school and ran down the main road, following it until he came upon the crime scene. The authorities wouldn’t let him anywhere near it, of course, but he’d seen a quick flash of pale flesh and a blue dress just before the body was covered. 

“Winchester doesn’t have a lot of crime, so I was sure I could help find out what happened to her. I was able to obtain a copy of the autopsy report, and that’s how I solved the case.” 

B tilts toward him, his expression puzzled. “How’d that help?”

“Two things caught my attention. One was that she had some lacerations on her face that weren’t found elsewhere on her body, and then they also found some bits of glass caught up in her clothing, which were dismissed as debris from the river. I told the Chief Inspector that they should examine the glass to see if it came from an automobile windscreen.” He rolls over onto his back, nestling his head into the pillow and flinging an arm over his eyes to block out the lamplight. “It turned out that Daniel Evans – that was the murderer – had struggled with Gemma inside his car and smashed the windscreen. So the police looked into who’d had a windscreen replaced at the local shops and that lead them to Evans. Traces of blood were in his car, as well as fibres from her dress.”

L moves his arm aside just enough to peek up at B. “Is that what you meant by scary, though?” He smiles a little. “It’s not at all like being trapped in a car with a serial killer.”

* * *

 

“Guess you don’t really know who the killer is, out there. At least not until they get you alone–” Beyond muses, thinking of how terrified Gemma must have been– but how brief her terror was, “A killer wouldn’t have been able to get through the police the way he did.”

“Yes– it was rather fantastic.”

“Glad it’s different, in real life,” he says quietly, slightly reassured that Lawliet’s world is…quieter, at least. Lawliet smiles gently back. 

“I am as well– are you alright to sleep now? I think tomorrow will keep us busy.”

“Yeah,” Beyond reaches over to switch off the light, plunging them into darkness. 

He passes the night only half-sleeping, the remainder of the night plagued by unsettling nightmares-that-could-be-memories. Every time he wakes, he rolls over to stare at Lawliet, reminding himself that he  _ will  _ solve the mystery behind these visions– which are real, and which are not. 

Lawliet’s name, death date float over his forehead.  _ What’s to solve there, though? What am I? _   Beyond rolls over to stare at the darkness, curling into himself slightly. 

The darkness, for its part, holds no answers that do not seem to lie. 

In the morning, it’s Lawliet who rises first. Wammy has ordered in some breakfast pastries, sausages, which wait on the table. But his attentions are mostly focused on the desk, which contains the smallest computer Beyond has ever seen, hooked up to what looks like a phone without a cord… or perhaps a walkie-talkie.

_ Cellular? _ Beyond realizes, remembering a few rich businessmen with them in his neighborhood. He stretches, slipping out of bed to sit next to Lawliet around the makeshift breakfast table. Lawliet is scribbling down notes of sorts in his casebook. 

“What’s all this for?”

* * *

 

L curls his fingers over the computer’s clam-shell case. “This is a NEC Ultralite PC, the lightest model on the market, currently. And the mobile is a Motorola MicroTAC.” He adjusts the external floppy drive and connects the phone to the computer. “Harold’s a bit of a video game and computer fanatic, so I had him code a voice-altering program for me.” 

With a few keystrokes, the computer recites dialogue in a rusty voice that sounds like that of an older man:  _ Hello, Chief Inspector Clarke. This is L calling. _

“That’s my voice, if you can believe it.”

“No way!” B leans over to study the blue and white computer screen. “That’s cool.” 

“Anyway, I’m gonna phone that Clarke and ask him if I can view those surveillance videos.” He gives a little nod to the NYPD report, still sitting out on the desk. “It’s only just past seven, so Clarke should still be at home. I’ll call him there. See what he makes of that.” 

B grabs a muffin and sits on the edge of the bed, watching L with keen, widened eyes.

Clarke picks up on the fourth ring, his voice gruff and hassled, echoing both in L’s ear and out of the computer’s tinny speaker. “Hello?” 

“Hello, Chief Inspector. This is L calling. My surrogate tried to pay you a visit at the precinct yesterday. Are you aware?” 

There’s a brief, slightly-crackled pause on the other end. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t hear about your presence in the building until after you were already gone.” 

“Yes. Deputy Inspector Jenkins seemed very protective of you.” The more L talks, the better he feels, an odd sense of calm and power tingling up his knees and legs and into his chest. He turns his head to B and gives him a quick smile. “I take it that Jenkins doesn’t realize that you’ve allowed me to look into the Marcus Miller case. Is there a reason for the secrecy?” 

“Of course there is,” Clarke says, practically a hiss. “None of this is sanctioned by the rest of the NYPD. I’ve got to cover my ass over here.” 

L frowns a little, slipping the end of his thumb into his mouth. “If it’s such a risk you’re taking, then why send me the case files in the first place?”

There’s another pause, this time punctuated by a weary sigh. “I’ve got a feeling Jenkins is hiding something. The only suspect he’s come back with is some kid on the security cams? Nah. It’s a bone-headed theory for someone who’s been on the force as long as he has.” 

“I agree.” L casts B another quick, reassuring look again. “Which is why I would like for my surrogate, Watari, to view that security footage.”

“I can’t allow that right now.”

“I see.” L pauses to fish for his best vocabulary words. “And what would enable you to allow it?” 

“Come back to me with something new. Some piece of evidence that Jenkins missed.” Clarke’s voice has renewed confidence, even over the so-so connection. “Then I’ll have recourse.”

L tugs on his lower lip and straightens up in his chair. “Of course. Thank you, I’ll be in touch soon.” He hangs up the phone with no further goodbye.

* * *

 

“It’s been this way a few times, you know. They want me to prove myself, I suppose,” Lawliet licks the jam off the spoon with an air of annoyance, “Eventually they’ll be coming after me to take cases for them, but until then we have to play their game.”

Beyond nods, finishing up the rest of his pastry, “M'guessing there are some things you can get that the police can’t.”

“Well, you, for one,” Lawliet nods at him quite seriously, “And even if they did have access to you for interrogating, I doubt their methods would have much success and finding out what happened.”

Beyond nods back, feeling a little detached from the situation. 

“How would you feel about retracing your steps that night? Those that you remember.”

“Yeah, we can definitely do that,” Beyond nods with grim resolve.

_ It’s time, I guess. Time to start digging. _

Wammy drives them out to Brownsville, Beyond disguised under the blue coat and floppy hat. The powerful walls of the expensive car feel safe, but Beyond can feel the flicker around his eyes starting to creep up.  _ You knew this was going to happen. You can do this. _ When they get out of the car, the sky has started to grey with clouds.

Beyond steps out onto the frost-covered sidewalk, blinking several times.  _ Keep it together. _

“He left from home too, cause I asked him to visit that day,” Beyond mumbles, looking up at his old house with a knotted dread. It looks the same, which is good, though the windows tint red. Beyond is pretty sure the rats on the street are real though, seeing as Lawliet wrinkles his nose slightly at their squeaking.

“Which was your home?”

“Right up there,” he points at the narrow apartment on the second floor above the neon-sign for the car wash, “Window used to be mine.”

The glass has more cracks than Beyond remembers.

“Let’s not stick around here,” he says, trying not to stare at his mother’s face among the brickwork, “I’ll show you where it happened.”

“You seeing okay?” Lawliet asks quietly, when Wammy is a few steps behind him.

“Not any worse than usual,” Beyond says quietly. He likes the weight of the sun hat on his head. Makes it easier to think of himself as someone else, someone that doesn’t know this place or what happened here. He finds the small alleyway, gesturing to Lawliet, “Follow me.”

* * *

 

The alley smells faintly of garbage – L can only imagine how much worse it must be in the summer heat – and a squeaking rat darts in front of their path, making both L and B jump. At the end of the alley, B pauses at a heavy door bearing a stenciled label that reads  _ Saratoga Parking Garage _ . L gazes upward, judging the structure to be four stories tall and rather poorly maintained. 

“This is where I followed him.” B tests the doorknob, his blue sun hat ruffling in the wind. “I thought he might be heading over there.” He points out toward Saratoga Avenue. “The auto body shop where he’d been working as a painter was that way, but he went in here, instead.”

L wonders briefly if B might’ve gotten his artistic inclinations from his father, but then again he supposes that painting vehicles is a lot different from drawing maps and scenery. 

Surveying their surroundings once more, L finally turns to address Wammy. “Will you wait out here and stand guard? And if anything happens, we’ll be sure to shout.” 

Wammy presses his lips together, then finally nods. “Twenty minutes and then I come for you.”

“Alright.” 

B holds the door open as L steps gingerly into the cold, iron-and-concrete stairwell. Immediately he spots the clunky surveillance camera up high on the wall, encased in a protective dome. Fortunately, he wore a laughably large winter hat with ear flaps; it frequently falls into line of vision, which is irritating, but it completely covers his unkempt hair. “Keep your head down,” he mutters to B, taking the stairs two at a time up the short flight of steps, then opening the first door he sees. 

“It was on the third floor,” B pipes up behind him.

“Okay, let’s just have a look out here…” The door opens onto the vehicle entrance to the parking garage, where there’s neither an attendant or any kind of gate in place. He does spot a second security camera over the entrance, though.  _ That must be the broken camera. _ Just as he’s about to ask B how the garage customers actually pay, he spots a pay-station along the wall with rows of numbered, tiny slots for stuffing dollar bills and coins. _ $2 per day _ ,  _ Sundays and Holidays Exempt.  _

Satisfied for now, L shuts the door and B leads them up the stairs this time, his eyes cast downward.

The third level of the garage is dark and drippy, and the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead are half burnt out. B looks both dazed and oddly delicate as he scuffs across the old-stained concrete – maybe it’s the girl’s hat and coat that does it. L shifts his backpack carefully and reaches out to grab B’s wrist, tugging him back. “Stay with me.”

B nods, pale-faced and grim. 

L drops his wrist and looks up and down the ramp. There are only four cars parked up here, one of them an old pickup truck that looks like it's on its last set of wheels, but the other three are late model sedans. A Toyota Camry, a Honda Accord, and a Ford Mustang convertible. He makes a mental note:  _ Nice cars for such a crap garage. _

“Do you remember what happened up here?”

[ ](http://68.media.tumblr.com/ef66251c96d5da8798c9ce49b92d28dc/tumblr_oh2oww304P1vxcoefo1_1280.jpg)

_ Saratoga Parking Garage [do not edit or repost] _

* * *

 

“I remember coming up these stairs– my dad was with a man,” Beyond mumbles a little bit. The memories come back in sharp bursts, blinking at his vision. The force of them,  _ here _ almost knocks him flat, “Blonde hair. That’s all I remember.”

He steps forward absently, staring at the patterns of the peeling paint in the yellow lines.  _ Do I remember these? _ The buzz of fluorescent lights is causing his ears to fill up unduly, his body seeming to float away from him, or is it him floating? He catches himself swaying, bits his lip,  _ hard _ to remind himself where he is. 

All that’s coming to mind are wings painted with blood, hands grasping for his?  _ Were they mine? _ Beyond remembers it differently every day. He exhales with frustration.

_ I thought coming here would be different. I thought I’d know what really happened _ .

“M’sorry. I don’t remember. I doubt what I do remember is any good,” he hangs his head, shuddering dejectedly. Lawliet takes his hand again, squeezes it once.

“That’s alright. I’ve learned something, at least, just from coming here. We can go if you like.”

“Yeah,” Beyond lets Lawliet lead him out, somewhat in a haze. Even the sharp pulse of Lawliet’s hand feels a little distance from reality. He nibbles at his knuckles for a moment,  _ and then _ he freezes, a memory crashing over him with absolute certainty. Lawliet pauses to stare at him.

“Something wrong?”

“Wait– I think I left a different way,” Beyond drops to his knees a moment, remembering the sensation of cold asphalt, hand through a puddle as he dragged himself towards the main door. He forces himself up,  _ just as he did _ on that night, look left, look right, it was dark, but there was a door just before the main entrance to the garage, solid and grey. 

He picks up his feet, dragging Lawliet with him to the first floor,  _ please let it be there, _ and sure enough, it’s to the left of the entrance and out of sight of the streetlights. 

“There– it opens up to an alleyway,”  Beyond exhales his relief, gesturing to it excitedly, “It’s how I got out, I think. I remember that much.”

* * *

 

L studies the door, figuring it must be for maintenance workers (back when maintenance work was actually done), or customers who’ve parked so close to the entrance they don’t need to take the stairs to reach their vehicle. 

“That explains why they don’t have any footage of you leaving, if you went out this way.” L eyes the broken camera again. He expected the garage owner to have fixed the equipment by now, but its telltale red power light is dark. 

Before L can point this out to B, the maintenance door swings open with a loud creak and a boy in his mid-teens ambles through, his face nearly hidden by a baseball cap. He pulls up with a start when he spots B and L, but visibly relaxes when he realizes that they’re just kids. “Hey,” he drawls, giving them a little nod as he shuffles past, keys clicking together in his hand. L watches as he walks all the way up the top of the ramp and turns the corner for the next level.

“He’s not taking the stairs,” L observes. “I wonder if he’s trying to avoid the functional camera, too. And if so, why.” 

B’s eyes flicker with a curious, eager light. “Let’s find out.” 

L quickly checks the watch on his wrist. They have seven minutes until Wammy comes looking for them. 

“Alright.” He takes the ramp at a trot, B right at his side.

They slow down when they get to the third floor, peering around the corner with their bodies pressed protectively to the concrete wall. The brim of B’s sun hat brushes his nose, nearly making him sneeze. He holds his breath until his watery vision clears, watching as the teenager unlocks the Mustang convertible and starts to slide inside.  _ Is he even old enough to drive? _ As if made alert by L’s thought, the kid looks over his shoulder before shutting the car door, the whites of his eyes bulging as he spots them from thirty feet away.

* * *

 

_ Oh shit.  _ The kid is already wrenching the door open, squinting at the two of them in the distance.  _ He’s gotta be a gang runner. And we just got caught spying. _

“Hey punks! What the fuck are you doing up here?” the kid’s voice actually cracks a bit as he slams to the door shut, stomping towards them. Beyond scans the boy’s stance, assessing what kind of fight is in him.

_ I could really use a fight right now. _ Beyond clenches his fist tightly, putting on the wide-eyes. The kid is doing the same, and seeing as he isn’t reaching inside his coat…the odds are good. 

_ No knives, no brass knuckles _ . The boy is actually pretty short, can’t be more than fifteen. As he gets closer Beyond can count the pimples on his ugly face. Beyond glances over at Lawliet, who has slumped to something wide-eyed and dopey.  _ Playing dumb.  _

_ S’good. Catch him by surprise when we fight back _ . 

“Ain’t you got anything to say, fuckwad?” 

“I don’t got anything to say,” Beyond smirks a little, feeling Lawliet tense at the ready beside him.  _ Wait for him to strike first. _

“You little shit. Gonna make you regret messing with Hoodwave,” when the boy lunges with too much force with his fist,  _ like those dumbasses always do _ , and it’s too easy for him to slip aside, the concrete wall taking the force of it instead.

His yowl is pretty damn satisfying, cutting through the buzz of the fluorescent lights and jarring Beyond to life. 

He gets one punch to the gut in, the boy manages a clumsy one at his chest but it doesn’t slow him down. Then Beyond goes for the knees, takes him down, clawing at the boy’s eyes with his nails, trying to dodge the boy’s flailing fists, losing himself in the red-tinted fervour of it. 

It’s only when he reaches his fist back to try and break the boy’s nose that he wonders, fleetingly

_ Where’s Lawliet? _

* * *

 

As soon as the boy’s fist connects with concrete and he erupts in a scream of pain, L sees the opportunity for a clean getaway and is off and running down the ramp, his boots nearly skidding through the icy puddles. It isn’t until he’s almost reached the bottom that he realizes there’s no footsteps sounding beside him.

_ Oh no…  _ L rocks back on his heels, torn for a split second as to whether he should take the stairs and get Wammy, or go back to find out what happened to his friend. The sound of another shout makes the decision for him.

Up at the top of the ramp and around the corner, L finds B and the boy tangled on the ground, their fists blindly flying. Unbelievably, B seems to have the edge – not only that, he’s actually  _ smiling _ as he drives his knuckles into the center of the boys face, then does it again and again until there’s a sickening crunch and his hand comes back with blood stains.

“Ahhh! My nose! Ahhhh you fucking broke it!” The boy wails, still trying to throw B off him. 

Staring at the scene before him, L wonders how B can be so vulnerable and paralyzed by his visions, only to transform into a wild animal when the threat is something concrete, like a person.

_ But that doesn’t mean he would – _

L runs closer, skitters to the ground, and grabs one of the boys arms, twisting it around until he stops struggling and gasps in pain. B grins up at him manically, a little trickle of blood on his forehead. 

“He’s in Hoodwave, local scum gang.” B swipes at the blood, showing unmarred skin beneath. 

“What are you doing in here?” L asks calmly, though he doesn’t dare loosen his grip on the kid’s arm. 

“Nothing! Fuck you.” The kid’s groan is nearly muffled by the concrete his face is pressed into. 

L thinks his options over carefully. He wants to ask the kid if he was going to steal that Mustang, or if the Mustang already  _ was _ stolen, but if he’s a part of a gang then that means it’s probably a big operation. If Hoodwave finds out someone is on to them, then they’ll pull up their stakes and move elsewhere, making the investigation more difficult.

“What’s his name and date?” 

B blinks in surprise, then focuses his eyes on what L can’t see. “Glen Watson. September 6, 1997.”

L loosens his grip on Glen’s arm and pats him on the shoulder. “Did you hear him, Glen Watson? You’re going to die in just over seven years.” Glen has nothing to say to that, his face twisted up in pain and humiliation. “Maybe you should do something worthwhile before then.” L stands up and gestures at Beyond to do the same, leaving Glen spread out flat on the concrete.

B looks a little puzzled, but doesn’t protest when L heads back to the stairs. 

“Think he’ll tell anyone about us?”

* * *

 

“Doubt it. Who would believe him? He wouldn’t want anyone to know he couldn’t hold his own in a fight,” Beyond keeps his voice low and grim, the blood singing in his ears.  _ Yeah, this is what being here is like. _

It’s not nice by a long shot, but it fits him. The walls of the garage bend and flicker at him, and he grins back. Thinking about how Lawliet used the date to put the heat on the boy. Force him to make a choice.  _ Smart, I guess. He did say it could be useful. _ Beyond takes the tissues that Lawliet offers, uses them to wipe his hands. 

When they get back to the car, Beyond looks less bloodied, although his coat is covered in dirt from the concrete. Lawliet doesn’t bat an eye when Wammy stares at him with a concerned frown.

“Beyond was re-enacting parts of the murder for me,” Lawliet says calmly to Wammy, “It would be best if we didn’t discuss that for now. Let’s return to the hotel.”

“That seems like a wise idea,”  Wammy nods seriously, though his eyes crinkle slightly looking at Beyond. 

Beyond doesn’t have to try too hard to not look pale and shaken. Though the adrenaline is keeping him grounded, for now. The car feels safe in any case, and he exhales a small grin to Lawliet, “Thanks.”

“Thank you,” Lawliet smiles back with the air of a liar. It suits him. The car slides into gear, and out of the neighbourhood of familiar ghosts. For now. 

“You mentioned a gang in your neighborhood, the Hoodwave? Can you tell me much about them?” Lawliet affects an air of detached curiosity, as if it were nothing more than a pleasant conversation that led to this question.  _ Neat trick. _

“They’re shitheads, all of them,” Beyond grimaces, remembering the thugs that he’d marked down to  _ avoid _ , “The gang takes a lot of kids, white kids only though. They all think they’re the shit. Probably would have gone after me later, especially after my mum died. They get away with a lot. S’why there’s a wait list to join up.”

“How old are the kids that join?”

“Fourteen, fifteen? These newbies usually know if they get in and fuck up, they end up dead. There was a teen on my block who was always starting fights, picking on anyone who he could. His date was young. Always wondered why. When he was strutting around, bragging about getting the tattoo, I knew. He didn’t even last a month. 

“Do you know anything about what they steal, or what kind of contraband they trade in?” Lawliet has taken out his notebook and is scribbling a few things down in narrow script. 

“I don’t, know. I tried to stay away from ‘em. If they got the tattoo– they carried knives, usually. So you didn’t want to fuck with them,” Beyond catches Lawliet’s eye, wanting to ask what the connection is, but Lawliet just crosses the ring and pinky finger of his left hand.  _ Not here. _

* * *

 

L doubts that Marcus Miller was a member of Hoodwave, especially if they prefer to recruit young, but he keeps thinking of the Ford Mustang that Glen Watson was getting into, of the Honda and Toyota that were parked right nearby it.

_ Investigate the body shop where Marcus worked _ , he writes into his notebook, using Italian just for the practice. Because if there’s anything a gang-led car theft ring needs, it’s a reliable chop shop.  _ Call the owner of the parking garage,  _ he adds, frowning a little. That broken security camera is starting to seem a lot less like mere negligence. 

“What’s the tattoo look like?” L passes the notebook to B, who barely hesitates before sketching out the crude design: a letter “H” made out of lightening bolts and set inside a circle. 

“Some have fancier versions than that, but that’s the Hoodwave emblem.” 

Wammy’s glasses glint in the rear-view mirror as he pulls the car up to the hotel’s valet stand. “It sounds as if it was wise of you to keep your distance from them, Beyond.” 

L can tell from his tone that Wammy is curious about this sudden talk of gangs, but he doesn’t want to discuss it further until he knows for sure that there’s a connection between Marcus’ murder and Hoodwave. Once they’re back inside the hotel room he drops the subject entirely, instead examining the streaks of grease and oil down the front of B’s blue coat. 

“Can we take this to the cleaners to see if they can fix it?” He asks Wammy, who nods amiably enough. B shrugs out of the coat and passes it over, removing the slightly-rumpled sun hat, too. 

“It seems wise for Beyond to stay off the streets of Brooklyn without this disguise.” Wammy folds the coat into a plastic bag. “Perhaps we should go to Manhattan for the day?”

“We’ll both need to shower.” L isn’t as filthy as B is, but he could still use a good scrubbing. “But yes, that sounds like a good idea.” He casts his eyes on B. “Have you ever been to the Met? The big art museum?”

* * *

 

Beyond has never been to the Met, or anything tourists would do in New York City. Travelling out of Brownsville by sneaking onto a bus, or on foot, was often more trouble than it was worth, and getting lost in Manhattan wasn’t his idea of fun.  _ But with Lawliet and Wammy…that might be alright _ . Beyond rinses the hotel shampoo out of his hair and wonders faintly what an art museum might really be like.

He pulls on a fresh pair of boxers and trousers, passing Lawliet with a grin on the way out of the bathroom. On the bed he pulls one of Lawliet’s white tee’s over his damp hair, and reaches in his jacket for the deck of cards, gearing up to play a quick game of solitaire.

“Cards from the sailors?” Wammy’s mustache wiggles into a slight smile.

“Yeah,” he smiles a little.  _ The old man remembered _ .

“I would say we should play gin rummy, if we had time. Perhaps in the evening,” Wammy sits down on the bed, looking a tad stiffer than normal, brow furrowed with something between curiosity and concern.

“If Lawliet doesn’t need to do detective shit, yeah,” Beyond studies the cards, then glances up to Wammy’s fascinated expression.  _ What’s he after? _

“No doubt. There haven’t been many cases that L has taken where he’s had to visit the evidence on location—nor where the danger was so imminent,” Wammy’s voice is mild, but there’s an undertone of omission there. Beyond’s face darkens, the cards flickering at the edges in spite of himself.

“I’m not going to hurt him, I swear,” he mumbles angrily at the cards.

“I didn’t mean that you were a danger to L, Beyond,” Wammy’s expression blanches with surprise, “Goodness knows, I wouldn’t have agreed to this case if I thought you were.”

_ Maybe you should think that. _

“How can you be sure, though?” the question slips out of his mind without permission.

Wammy frowns for a brief moment, “I cannot be certain, of course, but I trust my instincts as anyone must. And I trust L’s instincts.”

Beyond shares a serious nod with Wammy, then realizes what the old man was after all along.  _ He knows we’re keeping secrets _ . But Wammy doesn’t press the issue further. It’s just as well, because Lawliet is coming out of the bathroom, two towels wrapped around his waist and hair.

“Well, gentlemen, should we head to Manhattan?” Wammy smiles at Lawliet, and Lawliet’s smile back doesn’t have any lies in it.

* * *

 

When they’re all dressed as tourists and driving over the Brooklyn Bridge, it actually feels more like they’re all on a holiday of sorts. L likes Manhattan, how compact and tall the buildings are; it’s about the same size as London, but feels a lot bigger because so much of it stretches up. 

As they finish crossing over the bridge, L leans forward in his seat to address Wammy. “Can we stop for lunch at that restaurant in the East side? The one with the funny sign on the building?” 

“Katz’s delicatessen?” 

“Yes, that’s the one!” 

He sits back in his seat and gives B a confident smile. “It’s not very fancy, but the food is  _ good _ .” 

Katz’s is still a little crowded from the lunch rush, and loud with the clinking of spoons and the sound of brash, New York voices. But they get a table straight away, with a good view of the whole restaurant. The walls are crammed with photographs and neon signs, and the air smells like fresh bread, though L knows that it’s most likely bagels. 

“Look at this.” He picks up the jar of sugar and shows B how the little disc at the top flips open when he turns the jar on its side. “You can just pour as much as you want. Oh, and they have these really nice cakes, here, too. They’re sort of flat like a biscuit, and have white icing on one half, and chocolate on the other.”

* * *

 

Beyond grins a little bit, “You’re talking about Black and White cookies, right? Yeah, they’re in pretty much every deli in New York.”

“Oh, of course,” Lawliet places the sugar back on the table, looking slightly deflated. 

“Hey, you’re the one that’s a tourist here,” Beyond grins and Lawliet smiles a little at him back. 

Beyond surveys the deli, it being mostly like any other delicatessen in New York– except that it’s collection of famous visitors is far from modest– stretching across an entire wall. He points one out to Lawliet, “Hey look, Joker’s visited here!”

“Sorry?” Lawliet tilts his head slightly, squinting at the photograph of Jack Nicholson. 

“They put up pictures of celebrities that visit– this place must be a big deal, cause I’ve never seen as many in one deli before.” 

“Oh– I didn’t realize– look, there’s Harrison Ford as well…”

They both have a good time spotting actors and a few politicians that they’ve heard of. Before long, they’re full up on potato knish, pastrami sandwiches, and black and white cookies, and the imposing stone of the Metropolitan Museum of Art comes into view. The sun has broken through the clouds to sparkle on the snow-covered rooftop ornaments.

“Wow. Never seen New York like this before,” Beyond lets out a low whistle, smiling a little self-deprecatingly at Lawliet, “How the other half lives, huh?”

* * *

 

“I suppose,” L mutters, though a part of him wants to point out that no one  _ lives  _ at the Met, and that besides that, admission is free for those under the age of twelve. But it’s been a good day so far, too good to start a squabble, so he just takes the wide concrete steps two at a time, swift enough to send pigeons bolting up into the air. 

“It’s really big,” he tells B once they’re inside the lobby. “I doubt we’ll be able to see everything in one day. But we could start with the Europeans; there should be famous paintings in that collection.”

Wammy, who seems to have the museum half-memorized, takes them upstairs to  _ European Paintings, 1250-1800,  _ where they start with Byzantine and quickly move on to early Renaissance. All three of them circle around at their own pace, preferring to gaze at the paintings and read the placards in silence, though B and L do start to amuse themselves by murmuring  _ “look, it’s Jesus again”  _ back and forth.

Soon enough, they’re facing down the dark shadows of the Baroque era, and L pauses at one painting in particular, gazing at it for a long time. “Judith with the Head of Holofernes,” a piece by an Italian artist that L has never heard of, Massimo Stanzione. On the canvas a woman dressed in bright yellow and scarlet – though to L she looks quite a bit like a young girl, or maybe even a young boy – gazes heavenward as she rolls out a severed head from the folds of her robes. The placard explains that it’s meant to be the biblical Judith with the head of an enemy general, but something about the calm expression on her face unsettles L, though he can’t quite think why.

Or can’t until B steps up beside him, anyway. Only then does L’s memory flick back to the parking garage, to the image of B’s calm, near  _ peaceful _ face as he pummeled his fist into Glen Watson’s nose until came back bloody. 

_ But that’s different. Glen Watson was threatening us. It was self-defense. _

He doesn’t even realize that B has moved on until he loudly whispers to him from several paintings down. “I think this one’s famous. Caravaggio?”

L shakes off the buzzing thoughts, shoves them to the background, and joins B in front of the painting,  _ “The Musicians.”  _

“I’ve heard of this one.” L points to one of the oddly cherubic figures holding a stringed instrument. “That’s the artist’s self-portrait. And that sharp use of light and shadow is called Tenebrism.” He pauses long enough for another bit of knowledge to seep from the coils of his brain, and lets it slip out without thinking: “He once got in a brutal fight after a tennis match and ended up killing his opponent.”

* * *

 

Beyond blinks several times, images of the fight recombining in his mind with the fragments of the murder memories. His hands on his father’s neck– on Glen’s neck–  _ but I never had my hands on Glen’s neck. _

Doesn’t stop the memory from looking real in his mind. Beyond glances back at the painting of the beheaded man, biting his lip. 

“Did he mean to do it?” Beyond asks without looking at Lawliet. 

“I’m not sure,” Lawliet says rather mildly. Beyond isn’t sure what he means by  _ that _ either, tears his eyes away from ‘The Musicians’ to stare at  another cherubic painting, trying to keep his mind off things. 

_ Is he starting to suspect me? Was he wrong?  _ If it’s true, it’s a frustrating way to do it.  _ Or maybe it’s just another fact to him. _ In any case, he doesn’t want to hear any more. Not when things are peaceful like this. 

It doesn’t get any better, though. Familiar and unfamiliar faces start to shimmer overtop of all the portraits.  _ Even Jesus looks like my dad _ . Beyond tries to push it away. 

“Can we see some of the weird modern art?” Beyond asks Wammy when they reach the end of the European section.  _ Curious about what the big deal is there. _

_ Besides, it’ll be nice to see something without faces in it.  _

The contemporary art room is featuring huge canvases, filled in with fields of subtle colors in strips and rectangles, each in its own segment. They feel solid, weighted, but have no recognizable faces or scenes in them. Barely even geometry. Just color. 

“Know anything about these? I don’t think I really get it.” 

“Abstract expressionism, I think they’re called. Post-war art,” Lawliet tilts his head at one of the paintings, “I’m not sure I ‘get’ it either. The color choices are interesting, though.”

“Mark Rothko is the artist–” Wammy cocks his head slightly at the painting, “I think he saw things quite differently than most people do.”

“Maybe it looks different from far away–” Beyond runs to the edge of the huge room, then walks slowly up to the painting. The red and ivory almost bleed together, the edges coalescing into something strange. It’s relaxing to look at. He stares long enough that Lawliet comes to stand beside him, staring intently at the painting as well.

“It does change– can’t tell if that’s just me though,” he says doubtfully to Lawliet, “The colors sort of shimmer.”

“No, I think I see what you mean– the red sort of blends a bit from this distance, but then sharpens when you get closer?” Lawliet nibbles his finger and Beyond nods at him with a smile. They stay step in step, walking towards it together.  

“Rothko…I think he killed himself, actually,” Lawliet sits down on the bench in front of another painting, titled  _ No 16. _

“Why? Did he want to die?” Beyond tries to imagine what that would be like. It isn’t that hard, really.  _ Living can be pretty lonely. I wonder how different Rothko had to see things to make work like this. _

“I think he just didn’t want to change. He didn’t have the best habits, and wasn’t young when it happened,” Lawliet nibbles his nail, “Still, it’s sad really. He was quite renowned as an artist at that point, I think.”

“Maybe he got what he wanted, then,” Beyond shifts a little closer to Lawliet.

“Maybe. I don’t think we can ever know, perhaps.”

* * *

 

They stare at  _ No 16. _ a little longer, both silent, until Wammy shows up at the bench and delicately clears his throat. 

“There’s much more museum left to cover. Shall we move on?” 

They both nod somberly and follow him into  _ Asian Art _ , most of it unfamiliar to L, though it presents a fascinating collection of glazed ceramics, lacquered wood, and painted silks. In the section of Japanese art, L pauses in front of  “Under the Wave off Kanagawa,” recognizing the huge, clawing tsunami and the glimpse of Mt. Fuji in the background. 

“Wicked.” B bends over to examine the tiny people in their boats, careful to stay a few steps back so they don’t get scolded by any of the guards wandering the room.

“Saskia was half Japanese,” L offers offhandedly. “She was born with the name Shimizu Chinami.”

“Really?” B straightens up. “Why’d she change it? To not stand out so much?”

L smiles a little at that, thinking that B can probably commiserate, given that his legal name is ‘Beyond Birthday.’

“That was probably part of it, but she also said that the Japanese were nasty, owing to some of the things they did during World War II.” He rubs a finger along his bottom lip, a litany of Saskia’s speeches on various topics drifting back to him. “She didn’t like the Chinese, either, cos that’s where she was born and the villagers were horrible to the Japanese colonizers once the war was over. Not too fond of Russia, either. Her dad was Russian but she never met him.” 

B looks at him with wide eyes that seem to shimmer with recognition. “Well shit, did she like anyone, then?” 

L shrugs a little. “The Dutch. She ran away from a Russian orphanage when she was twelve and ended up in Amsterdam. A family of scientists took her in and she changed her name to Saskia.”

“And yet she named you ‘L’,” B deadpans, and even though he normally hates being asked about his name – which is precisely why he goes by Lars – L lets out a little giggle, the irony of the comment not lost on him. 

“Yeah, ‘L,” after the L-function in mathematics.”

“ _ What? _ You serious?” B gawps at him like he’s just grown two heads. 

“She liked Math.” L shrugs again, a faint smile still lingering on his lips. “Math and the Dutch. Oh, and sweets.”

* * *

 

“I think I can get behind that,” Beyond nudges Lawliet back, “God knows I don’t know why my mum named me ‘Beyond’.” 

“I couldn’t imagine, B,” Lawliet says dryly, and Beyond laughs too. 

He doesn’t elaborate on his mother, for the moment, and Lawliet doesn’t press the issue, which is nice.  _ I wonder if there’s a B-function or some-odd. _ He likes the nickname, though. The kids back at school would sometimes call him BB, or BB gun, which gave the right mystique to keep people from messing with him.

But it wasn’t  _ nice,  _ really. He turns to Lawliet, a half-formed thought on his lips, when Wammy steps over to the two of them, smiling curiously

“I suppose I’ve subjected you boys to enough of my interests for the day,” Wammy checks his watch, “Anywhere you’d like to drive by before dinner?”

They take a proper tourist’s view of the city by car, circling around Lady Liberty and heading back via the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s comfortable, and Lawliet knows enough facts to almost be a tour guide, though Beyond adds more than a few details about  what’s really behind the streets and storefronts. 

After dinner, Beyond teaches them to play something the sailors called “Oh Hell” (or “Oh fuck”, some nights). Lawliet takes to the game quite quickly, picking up the rules and the strategy with bright eyes and fascination. They use jelly beans for bets. Beyond knows how to play the odds well enough from intuition, but Lawliet turns out to be the best of them at bluffing. 

_ His lying comes in handy there _ , Beyond thinks ruefully as Lawliet takes another pot. He tries to take note of a few subtle tells– Lawliet’s smile is a little different, and his eyes become slightly more unblinking when he’s bluffing, his stance a little more stooped.  _ Subtle. But it’s there. _ It doesn’t help Beyond much this time around, as he’s already gotten too far behind on the betting pool. 

“Guess the win’s yours, tonight,” Beyond smiles at him as he packs up the deck.

“It’s alright, I’ll share the jelly beans,” Lawliet grins and pops one in his mouth, seeming quite satisfied with the result, “We should to play that one again sometime.”

Beyond takes a handful and bites off half of the lemon one, “I can teach you a few others I think you might like.”

“We should have lots of time to play cards in Winchester–” Lawliet breaks off slightly, then tucks a finger in his mouth, “After I solve your case, of course.”

Beyond stares back at Lawliet, who blinks just a little too late, smiles a little differently, his shoulders hunched as he casually plucks a second jellybean from his pile. 

_ That’s  _ if _ I make it back from solving the case. _


	6. December 29-30,1989

**December 29 1989**

“There it is.” L leans forward into the front seat and points his finger to the other side of Saratoga Avenue, a few blocks down from the parking garage. The Pawnshop, like most of its kind, has a large, brightly colored sign and plenty of goods in the window. “ _Ezee Pawn_.”

“Very well, then.” Wammy grips his gloved hands around the Mercedes’ steering wheel. “I’ll be sure to park the car in view of the front windows.”

The day after their trip to the museum had been mostly uneventful, with L making multiple phone calls, occasionally recruiting Wammy to take over as surrogate for some of them, all in pursuit of info on the owner of the parking garage. Eventually, they found what they were looking for: Evan McIver, who they discovered was also owner and proprietor of the _Ezee Pawn_.

By that time, it was mid-afternoon and none of them had eaten a proper lunch, let alone come up with a plan for the pawnshop. They ended up picking Beyond’s coat from the cleaners and taking in dinner and a movie, then coming back to the hotel to plot out their next moves.

“This should do.” Wammy puts the car in park and kills the engine, reaching up to adjust his Ray-ban sunglasses. He isn’t dressed as Watari today, instead outfitted as a wealthy tourist with a puffy leather jacket. L has on his best jeans and a pair of nonprescription glasses, and B is back to wearing his feminine blue coat and hat.

L reaches for the door handle, but turns to face B once last time before slipping out. “Don’t forget to stick to the hand signals. We’ll both have to act like we don’t understand English.”

B nods seriously and tugs the hat down a little further over his curls.

* * *

 

The place definitely _looks_ the part for something Beyond would stay away from. Wammy seems to take it in smooth confidence, immediately stepping up to the counter, ringing the bell.

An impressive inventory of beat-up rifles looms next to Beyond, underneath which a cheap velour display showcases the knives. Beyond’s eyes linger on the combat knives, biting his lip as his glance slides to the Bowie knives. _I know that one_ . His chest turns to lead and his eyes flicker as he remembers _this exact knife_ – but not quite. There was a nick on the handle of the last one, he remembers how the raw metal cut into his hand.

Beyond glances at his hand. Any cuts that ever existed there have long since healed.

“Sorry for the wait,” an older man with an easygoing grin comes out from the back, jingling with the sound of keys. Beyond wonders where he hides his tattoo, or if the older ones in charge even get the stupid things.

“I’m interested in a safe parking location for my vehicle. I was disturbed to notice that the main security camera on the Saratoga garage appears to be out of commission,” Wammy’s voice has a slight accent that Beyond can't’ quite place.

 _He’s really good at that, though. I wonder how I could learn._ There’s an edge to the way Wammy says that, too– like a threat that’s a bluff. _Not going to start any fights– but no one to be messing with either_.

“Ah, yes– it’s been an ongoing issue for quite a while, sir– although sales have been down lately, and other more important expenses have come up.”

“Losing my vehicle is _not_ something I would particularly take kindly too, Mr. McIver. But since I’m interested in protecting my investments, I would be willing to pay to have the security camera fixed, as soon as conceivably possible.”

Evan McIver raises his eyebrows slightly, shifting into a less easygoing, more servient stance, “If you have around seventy dollars, that ought to cover a replacement, Mr–”

“Russo,” Wammy produces the cash promptly, and Beyond notes the way the man at the counter’s eyebrows furrow at the name Wammy drops, “It suits me fine.”

* * *

 

While Wammy negotiates, L eyes a collection of instruments hanging from a ceiling beam: trumpet, trombone, banjo, and several guitars. He reaches for one of the lowest-hanging guitars and unhooks it, running his fingers lightly over the strings.

“I’ll expect the camera repaired by this afternoon.” Wammy stands tall and tucks his wallet back into his jacket.

“Oh, no sir.” Evan McIver shakes his head of yellowy-white hair. “I’ll need a few days, I’m afraid.”

“Why?” Wammy gestures around the empty shop. “I can see that you aren’t busy.”

McIver scratches the side of his jaw, clearly stalling. “Well, I’ll have to talk to my repair man, make arrangements… _I_ might not be busy, but _he_ is, you see.”

At that, L pipes up in his bad Italian, 98% sure that McIver doesn’t speak the language. _“Papa, I want to buy this guitar!”_ He strums the strings again, then bends over and, not caring if McIver sees him, roughly yanks three of the strings out. _“Nevermind.”_ He frowns and holds the guitar up as evidence. “ _It’s busted junk.”_

Wammy chuckles roughly and leans against the counter. “Ah, my small one has found some useless merchandise! If we give them enough time, they’ll turn up even more. It’s a rare talent.”

At that, B starts clacking wildly on the keys of an electronic typewriter.

McIver’s eyes widen in alarm. “Now, wait a minute–”

“The children have so much fun together.” Wammy gives McIver a bland smile. “May I have the name of your repair man?” He drops another fifty on the counter. “Since you seem reluctant to speak to him yourself.”

Taking a step back, McIver draws in a long sniff, likely weighing the pros and cons of the situation in his head. “Ozzy Walsh,” he finally says. “You can find him at _Precision Collision_ , around the corner and down on Livonia.”

A surge of accomplishment pulses through L’s chest, which he masks by setting the guitar down on an army trunk, doing his best to show no reaction whatsoever.

Just last night, B had revealed that the auto shop where his father worked was called _Precision Collision_.

* * *

 

Wammy leaves them outside this time when they arrive at _Precision Collision_ . Which is just as well. Beyond isn’t much feeling up to seeing the place again. _And there’s a small chance people might recognize me._

They start out ‘playing’ at the rusted jungle gym across the road. Beyond shimmies up to the top of the monkey bars, Lawliet keeps a sharp eye across the road from the metal slide. They sit on opposite ends of the see-saw, stealing glances over to the dirty shopfront every so often.

“I’ll need to get closer to read their names.”

“In a moment. We want to make sure Wammy has their attention,” There’s a familiar swoop when Lawliet steps off the see-saw, dropping Beyond to the ground, “Alright, now.”

Beyond keeps his face down and Lawliet is the one who peers obnoxiously in the window. He reads off a few names– Wammy is speaking with _Douglas Walsh_ , and there’s a man by the counter, face turned away, looking at a car. He’s got a heavy coat and hat on.

“Douglas Walsh,” Beyond murmurs, “Paul Vaines.”

Lawliet squints at the man and nods, “That’s promising. Anyone else? Can you see that man in the back?”

Lawliet makes what could be an obnoxious wave to Wammy, but gestures at a man skulking next to the towering metal lifts. Beyond focuses his eyes– and his heart nearly stops.

He recognizes the date first. _July 7, 1999._ The greasy, stringy blond hair and the deadened eyes framing the face of _Cillian Walsh._ Beyond’s vision goes red for a moment, the images reassembling themselves into something grotesque that he’s not sure whether to trust.

_I remember that date though. That’s real._

“I know one of them–” he whispers to Lawliet, trying to keep the shake out of his voice, “He was there. Cillian Walsh. I’m sure of it.”

* * *

 

_Cillian Walsh._

He’s clearly a relative of ‘Douglas Walsh,’ who L assumes is the one who goes by ‘Ozzy.” He looks like an Ozzy, with long, dark grizzled hair that’s just beginning to go grey at the temples. In contrast, Cillian looks several years younger, though hardened, somehow. His grease-and-paint smeared coveralls are paired with some decidedly heavy boots, similar to what was described in the police report, but L has no idea what size they might be, or what a ‘size ten’ in mens’ shoes even looks like.

“He was the only other person you remember seeing in the garage with your dad?” L asks the side of B’s face, voice pitched low.

L hears B swallow, then say in a deadened tone: “Trying to remember.”

L can feel the tension coming off him like smoke or electricity, and since the conversation between Ozzy and Wammy looks as if its getting slightly tense, too, he ducks away from the window and heads back for the street, gesturing for B to follow. “We better get out of sight again.” They shuffle toward the parked Mercedes, but before reaching it, another figure catches the corner of L’s vision. It’s a man in one of those long woolen winter coats that usually get worn over a suit, paired with a New York Yankees’ ball cap, yanked low over the face. It’s such a contrasting ensemble that it immediately strikes L as a bad disguise, and he slides against the car door and watches the man head for Precision Collision.

“What’s that man’s name?”

B flinches. “Shit. Roy Jenkins.”

 _Deputy Inspector Roy Jenkins._ With a surge of panic, L grapples for the door handle and, once it’s open, nearly shoves B into the back seat. “He saw Wammy at the station, dressed as Watari!” L clambers in after him and lunges for the front seat. Wammy isn’t dressed as Watari today, and as ‘Russo’ he even brushed some temporary hair dye into his mustache and temples, but even so, it wouldn’t be good for the two men to cross paths. “Fuck,” he mutters, his coat getting caught up in the seat belt. He slips out of the garment entirely and slithers up front, his fist tapping the car horn three times.

* * *

 

The sound of the horn jars Beyond back into the moment, images flickering in the black leather seats, “The windows…they’re tinted, right?” he manages to mumble.

Jenkins himself jumps and keeps his head down at the car horn– or so Beyond thinks. There are taut faces of skull and bone starting to flicker in the window-glass. Most of them look like a cruel smile framed by blonde hair, skin peeling away blood to reveal bone beneath. Beyond blinks violently.

“Yeah,” even Lawliet’s reply seems a little bit late. Beyond belatedly grabs his hand and grips tight, trying to focus both of them. The adrenaline helps.

 _Come on, Wammy. Get out of there._ He glances up at Lawliet, still vivid and pale amidst the ragged edges of his vision. Then back to the window, where a face he recognizes comes into view.

“Did he see you?” Lawliet asks as soon as the door slams.

“I can’t be sure. Was that Deputy Inspector Jenkins?”  Wammy frowns when L nods, “This bodes well for your theory, and Inspector Clarke’s, however dangerous it may be for us.”

Lawliet cranes his neck out the window, where Jenkins has his back turned, speaking to Ozzy Walsh without glancing over his shoulder. The bright color of his hat flares like blood underneath his name. He tears his eyes away before Cillian Walsh resurfaces. _Just go in prepared for that next time._

_Prepared for the worst._

“I wish I could hear what they were talking about,” Lawliet sits back in his seat with an short exhale, but doesn’t quite let go of Beyond’s hand, though he loosens the grip.

Beyond exhales slowly, letting go of the Lawliet for now. _Keep it together._ _It’s alright. All part of the case right? Just detective shit. We’ll solve this,_ “Did we get enough to work with, though?”

* * *

 

“Enough for me to call Clarke with in the morning.” L slumps against the window and watches as his breath casts fog on the glass. “We should pick up a second rental car, Wammy, since this one is recognizable as ‘Russo’s’ now.”

“Yes, I was just thinking that.” Wammy steers the Mercedes out of the Brownsville area and towards downtown Brooklyn. 

L hooks his pinky into his mouth and nibbles, more fretfully than thoughtfully. “If Jenkins  _ did _ recognize you, then I suppose right now he’s worried that you might have recognized  _ him _ . Hopefully that will keep him from taking action for a while.”

“I’m sure you’re right.” Wammy’s tone is warm but untroubled, but L supposes that serving in the Royal Navy and seeing action in Korea would make one a bit dismissive of a potentially-corrupt police officer.

L glances at B, whose lips are still wan even as color has finally returned to his cheeks. “That Cillian Walsh, if you remember anything else about him let me know, will you?” B gives a slow nod but says nothing. L doesn’t want to be pushy, especially when he knows it might trigger B’s vision, but he feels uncharacteristically anxious to solve this case, the sooner the better

_ Because you don’t want B to have been involved. _

He glances down at B’s hands, freed from his mittens, and fleetingly imagines blood on them, ground dark and black beneath the fingernails.

_ No, don’t think that. You can trust him. _

“Of course, Clarke will want to know about motives.” L straightens up in his seat, though he keeps gnawing on the end of his finger. “But we don’t know anything about Cillian Walsh other than he’s probably in Hoodwave. Do you reckon your father knew who he was working with?” 

* * *

 

“My dad wouldn’t have anything to do with Hoodwave. He told me they were scum, and to stay away from ‘em,” Beyond stares out the window, his vision starting to clear. The adrenaline is starting to churn into something like anger.

“Perhaps he was speaking from experience when he said that, “ Lawliet drops his hand from his mouth, “After all, the connection between the gang and _Precision Collision_ seems quite clear. And you did say there was an argument about money. Perhaps they were paying him to keep quiet– or perhaps he was doing other work for them.”

“He wouldn’t have,” Beyond repeats, less certainly now. _He wasn’t that good of a guy. But he tried._

 _He wouldn’t have sided with them– not when they take kids, chew them up, spit them out like fat._ That’s what his dad had warned him about.

“Hmm. He supported you and your mother as well, correct? And I’m guessing much of that went to your mother’s drug habit, which couldn’t have been cheap. Did he seem like often came with extra money, perhaps to make up for his absences?”

The accuracy of Lawliet’s statement sets Beyond’s teeth on edge, “Look, my dad was a lot of things but that doesn’t mean he was gang scum.”

“It seems obvious that he was involved in some respect,” Lawliet glares at him almost sharply, and Beyond balls his hand into a fist, “Especially given that–”

“L. Perhaps this is a theory you should be pursuing independently, or after more evidence presents itself,” Wammy cuts in with a gentle tone. Lawliet closes his mouth and curls his knees to his chest, staring out the window.

 _A detective can’t tell his theories to a suspect._ Beyond glares only for a moment at Lawliet then turns back out to the city streets, already turning grey with slush.

* * *

 

**December 30 1989**

L doesn’t sleep well. He doesn’t remember any nightmares, but when he opens his eyes he feels flattened and groggy, with a sharp crick in his neck. Beside him, B is still sleeping, his back and shoulders looking small and fragile beneath the mound of bedding.

_Too small and fragile to hurt anyone._

L feels slightly better after a shower. When he comes out in his towels he finds B awake, watching _DuckTales_ on the telly but still dressed in his pajamas. Room service has been set out on the table: cold cereal, orange juice, and blueberry muffins. Knowing that the food must mean Wammy is up and about in his own room, L pulls on his jeans and a tee-shirt, then grabs a blueberry muffin from the basket.

“I’ve got to debrief with Wammy.” He explains rather awkwardly to B while halfway to the hotel room door. They’d gone out for dinner in Manhattan the night before, and it had been late by the time they returned – too late for L to really sit down and talk with Wammy in detail about what happened at _Precision Collision_.

“Alright.” B tugs at the sleeves of his pajamas and seems to force his gaze back to the television.

“Won’t be long,” L assures him, shutting the door behind him.

Wammy’s room smells of fresh coffee and spicy aftershave, and he’s already made up his own bed ahead of the housekeeping services.

“Good morning, L.” He sets aside his copy of _The Guardian_ and neatly settles back into the desk chair.

L clambers on the end of the bed and folds himself into a crouch. “What’d you talk to Ozzy Walsh about, anyway? You didn’t say anything in the car yesterday.”

“Yes. It involved Beyond’s father, so I felt it best to wait until we were alone.”

“Well…” L tugs on the corner of the bedspread. “Here I am.”

Wammy’s eyes crinkle a little at the corners. “So you are.” Then he lets out a long breath and straightens his already-straight spine. “As Mr Russo, I inquired about the security cameras in the parking garage, then indicated that if I was unable to park my _own_ car there, perhaps I could park some _other_ cars. Provided the security camera stayed broken, of course”

L brings his thumb to his lips. “You gave him the idea that you were part of a car thief ring, too?”

“Something like that, though I assured him I was only in the area temporarily.”  

“How did he respond?”

“Not as I had hoped.” Wammy frowns a little at the memory. “He insisted that he had no idea what I was referring to, that _Precision Collision_ was nothing more than an honest body shop.”

L manages not to snort at that.

“So I then told him that I was assured by a former associate, Marcus Miller, that the body shop would be able to ‘meet my needs,’ so to speak.”

“Oh, that was clever.”

Wammy leans forward a little, meeting L’s eyes directly. “Ozzy Walsh then told me that he’d never heard of anyone named Marcus Miller, and the atmosphere changed. Became more tense. And that’s when I heard you sound the car horn.”

L curls his toes into the bedding, thinking hard. “Well, they didn’t seem to quite fall for your act like McIver did, but there must surely be records showing that Marcus Miller worked for them.” He looks up to meet Wammy’s blue eyes. “B remembers seeing one of the men there, Cillian Walsh, at the parking garage when his father died.”

“I see.” Wammy pauses to assess him quietly for a moment. “And yet you seem troubled by that. Any particular reason why?”

“I’m not troubled,” L protests. “It was probably Cillian who did it – either on his own or at the request of Hoodwave.” He chews on his thumbnail harder, can tell from the weight of Wammy’s silence that he’s waiting for L to continue. “It’s just that something happened in the Parking Garage when were in there alone. I guess it’s been bothering me a bit.”

“Ah. Yes, when I saw how rumpled and dirty Beyond was, I thought something may have happened. Did you quarrel?”

“Not with each other.” L swallows quickly. “There was a teenager there, one of the Hoodwave recruits. He tried to come after us and B just – he just walloped him. Broke his nose and got blood everywhere. And it just seemed as if it were nothing to him. As if he enjoyed it a little, even.”

The image in his mind skips back to B’s wide and wicked smile, the total, feral commitment to his assault, and then bleeds away to B crouched over that imaginary campfire, desperately trying to warm up his cold hands.

_Which one is real?_

“And this has upset you?”

“No. Well, I’m not sure exactly.” He shrugs his shoulders in a twitch. “I’m just not sure what to think about it.”

“Beyond has led a very different life than you, L,” Wammy points out, not unkindly. “He grew up quite literally with no-one to defend him, most of the time. He had to learn to survive on his own, and his ways of survival may look different than those you’ve seen before.”

It’s such a simple and bald explanation that L isn’t sure why he didn’t think of it before. He nods slowly, hugging his knees to his chest. “I guess that’s true. And the other kid did start things up. But my idea was to just run, really.”

“Maybe you can teach Beyond to run, too.” Wammy stands up and places his hand on the top of L’s head. He’s not at all a physically demonstrative man, but every once and a while he does touch L right on the very top of his head.

“Now that he has someone and somewhere to run to.”

* * *

 

Sleep is strange for Beyond that night— no faces nor memories pulled him out into a waking cold sweat. Monsters, instead, that he knew well from sleeping and waking, drag him through scene after scene, each more familiar than the last.

The monsters wear red-eyes like his. They keep passing him knives. _Stab the fuckers back—_ his mind says—his hands are paralyzed and the knives drop at his feet in a pile that morphs into shredded clothing, a puddle black with the blood he had washed off his hands.

 _It was raining the night before_ . He wakes with that thought on his lips, glancing down at his hands to check that they are wiped clean. Clean as when he drenched them in the dirty puddle under the streetlight in the alley way. _The puddle looked like faces—but it was cold. I remember that much_ . _I should tell that to—_

But Lawliet is gone, taking a shower in the other room. He bites his lip and flicks on the television set to distract himself. It doesn’t help much—the cartoons morph into shapes frighteningly like his nightmares. _I’ll talk to him. I don’t know if it means anything. But it has to help something._ He’s still half in his reverie when Lawliet comes out of the bathroom, then pauses, meeting his gaze and then glancing away.

“I’ve got to debrief with Wammy,” is all Lawliet says.

“Alright,” Beyond mumbles. Lawliet’s eyes held something like pity—or was it fear? _Can’t fucking blame him for either_. He turns away, the pictures on the television screen still looking like reapers wearing the teeth of rats.

 _I should take a shower._ He forces himself to move, gets to the bathroom and turns on the warm rain of the tap before sliding down to the floor, hands round his knees. Not knowing whether he wants Lawliet to come find him, whether he wants no one to find him ever again. _Does he still believe it wasn’t me? He has to._ There’s a quiet certainty in it this time, right before the sick dread of uncertainty starts to gather in his stomach. _He has to._

Beyond wishes he had something from that night– wishes he hadn’t burned his t-shirt before slipping back into his window hours after he’d come back to himself on a street corner not far from his house. Something that remembered better than he did what happened. _Something that knew._

_But I know that man was there that night—he said something to my dad._

_He did something._

Then comes a murderous, nauseating anger that reels over Beyond when the face of Cillian Walsh roils up in his mind. _I wanted to kill him but I—couldn’t see who he was_.

 _Why was I so angry?_ The question rings in his head with Lawliet’s voice. Beyond doesn’t know the answer, furrows his brow under the blur of the shower’s rain. Trying to see. Trying to remember.

“B? Are you in the shower?” Lawliet, real Lawliet cuts through his thoughts. _Get it together. Get out there. Help him figure it out._

_That’s the only way you’ll know._

“Yeah. I’ll be right out.”

* * *

 

B’s voice is muffled by the water, but L just manages to make out the words _‘be right out.’_ He pours himself a glass of orange juice and sits down at the desk, attaching the external floppy drive to his NEC Ultralite, which is already running Harold’s voice-alteration program, then powering on his Motorola mobile and connecting it to the port. He gets out his pen and notebook, just in case, then takes in a deep breath and dials in Chief Inspector Clark’s number.

He intends to keep the call brief, but it takes longer than he likes, explaining the connections between the Saratoga Parking Garage, _Ez Pawn_ , _Precision Collision,_ and the Hoodwave gang.

“Ozzy Walsh – yeah, he’s a known member of Hoodwave, but we’ve never been able to stick them with any criminal activity. Ozzy’s spent a night or two here for starting bar fights, but that’s all. Cillian’s his nephew, I think.” Clarke swallows thickly, drinking coffee no doubt. “And you think they’re involved in a car theft ring, in addition to murdering Miller?”

“Yes. Marcus Miller worked for Ozzy Walsh and was murdered at the parking garage where they’re stashing their stolen cars. Evan McIver is either helping willingly or has been strong-armed into the operation, and I suspect that Cillian Walsh is the one who carried out Miller’s murder.” L taps his pen against the notebook, steeling himself. “Your Deputy Inspector Jenkins is involved, too.”

Clarke’s long sigh is practically a whistle. “Yeah, I was worried you were going to say that. Jenkins called me up just a bit ago and says he’s got a hot tip on Hoodwave, enough to bust them on several counts of motor vehicle theft.”

L almost drops the phone. “A hot tip? But–” He pauses and scribbles a dark line on his notebook paper, remembering that he has to keep it together. He’s L. He can’t show any cracks. “Jenkins is attempting to cover his tracks. He spotted my surrogate at the body shop and realized that I was investigating them.”

The door softly creaks behind him and a puff of warm air washes over the room. He turns his head just far enough to spot B and hold a finger to his lips.

“I think you might be right, but Jenkins is already off to see a judge about a warrant. I had no rightful reason to stall him.”

 _Dammit._ L closes his eyes and tries to take a few deep breaths. This won’t be so hard when he’s older – for now he clings to that.

* * *

 

Lawliet is just hanging up the phone when Beyond has gathered himself enough to go back in. _Gonna do what I came for. Find out what I came for._ He takes a seat across from the desk on the bed, where Lawliet is scribbling madly in his notebook.

“So what’s the plan?” Beyond tries to figure out how to bring up the dream, or what he’s allowed to ask Lawliet anymore. Lawliet doesn’t look much better really, his hands wrapped around his knees, nibbling at the ragged-edge of his thumbnail.

“Fuck,” L says under his breath. That makes Beyond smile just a little, even though he’s now a little worried.

“Something happen?”

“It’s Jenkins. He did see Wammy last night. He’s going to bust Precision Collision to cover his connections with Hoodwave. Maybe even cover Cillian Walsh, I’m not sure. By the easiest assumptions, Cillian is a thug and he would throw him under the bus as well. But if this goes poorly, conclusive evidence about him being your father’s murderer could get lost in the scuffle– and there will be nothing to implicate Jenkins. Damnit.”

 _This did just get a lot more complicated_. Beyond draws his knees back into his chest, his dreams and memories momentarily forgotten, “The police will probably fuck it all up.

“Clarke cares about catching Jenkins, and I suspect more importantly, the gangs. But this looks…careless on my part that I let Jenkins become aware of the investigation. And he’s still not giving me any more evidence, though I’m beginning to suspect it’s because he has none.”

“Look, you still got him this far, right?” Beyond bites at his knuckles, thinking it over, “The Hoodwave shitheads…they’re not going to be happy if they find out Jenkins stabbed them in the back. I guess Jenkins is going to try to move faster than they can catch him out as a snitch.”

 _Which is fuckin’ dangerous._ If there was one other thing his father taught him, it was that crossing a gang was the second-worst thing you could do, after joining a gang.

_Maybe he knew that from experience too._

* * *

 

L has rarely felt so frustrated, his hands tied not just because of his age and inexperience, but because this isn’t his world – not really. What does he know about gang warfare and dirty cops? Particularly in this subset of Brooklyn, New York?

None of this was covered in the _New York Underground_ book he got for Christmas.

_But B – he might know._

“Jenkins can’t raid the body shop without a warrant, and apparently he’s in the process of obtaining that now. That gives us a few days, if we’re lucky. But we should act first if we can.” He meets B’s hazel eyes, a little startled at how the simple, brief connection calms him. “I don’t like to be stuck waiting like this,” he confesses. “It feels like a disadvantage.”

B toys with the towel in his lap, the knuckles of his other hand still pressed to his mouth. “Yeah, I know what mean. It’s like sitting ducks.”

L hugs his knees to his chest, swiveling the desk chair just enough so that he’s facing B completely. “You know a lot more about Hoodwave than I do… How are they likely to respond if ‘Russo’ gives them the idea that Jenkins might be planning to move against them?”

* * *

 _Does he think that because of my dad?_ Beyond tries to put the thought, and the anger that flares with it, behind him. Lawliet seems earnest enough. _Like he’s actually asking for my help._

“Depends how much they trust ‘Russo’, I’d say. If they think he’s lying they might not take him seriously— or they might get angry with him,” Beyond muses, thinking about the little he knew about people who got into Hoodwave. _They tended to be rougher on the kids,_ “Thing is, no one does anything in the gang world without something to gain. So what’s Russo’s angle?”

“Wammy has planted the idea that he’s an equally powerful gang leader, but not local. Perhaps he’s looking to peacefully expand his operation.”

“Risky—they might see the betrayal as Russo trying to weaken them so that he can move in. Although if their hands are tied, they might not have a choice,” Beyond turns the thoughts over in his mind, wondering how he would approach it, if he were Wammy. _That’s an interesting job,_ “A lot depends on how much they trust Jenkins, I’d say.”

“He could consider it in good faith—they don’t have to trust him yet, but there’s ways they can prepare for the raid without giving him any advantages. Of course, the actual goal would be locating and collecting evidence, but hopefully he can offer his assistance at covering their tracks.”

“Yeah, that’d probably work really well,” Beyond nods seriously at Lawliet, smiling at the thought of the staged drama, “Assuming Wammy can pull it off.”

At Beyond’s words, Lawliet’s brow furrows into lines of worry, nibbling at this fingertips, “Maybe this is too risky. These are real gangs. Wammy could get seriously hurt, and ‘Watari’ is already compromised.”

“Well, he’s not going to die today, or anytime soon,” Beyond says it offhand, recalling Wammy’s date years from now. Lawliet smiles at him a little gratefully for that, and he smiles back.

 _Yeah, I guess there are some ways this can be useful._  

* * *

L wants to have faith in the death dates that B sees. He believes that they’re real – after Marla Porter, how couldn’t he? – but it makes him uncomfortable that he doesn’t understand how they _work._ Marla Porter died because she fell down the stairs chasing the ghost of her dead son. A ghost she may not have ever seen, if L and B hadn’t broken into her house and disrupted her sleep.

_Do the death dates exist if B isn’t there to see them?_

Saskia once told him that Zen Buddhism had a word for that kind of question: _koan_ . A paradoxical riddle with no straightforward answer, like _“what is the sound of one hand clapping?”_

L is certain that whatever Zen Buddhism involves, he’d do rather poorly at it.

“Wammy won’t object to the idea, I imagine, though he’ll want to plan it out carefully.” He glances at the alarm clock near the bed, checking the time as just past nine. “He’s out on a few errands now, but said that he would be back with lunch for us at noon. That should give us time to get back to the body shop sometime before closing.”

B nods amiably, his hair starting to dry into loose curls. The abrupt movement makes L catch sight of the hotel painting in the background, positioned just over his head: white swans gliding across a lake.

_B can’t see his own death date._

And it isn’t just that, either. B is helpful, there’s no doubt about it, but he can be unpredictable, too, especially when his visions start to get bad. And if he sees Cillian Walsh again – well, who knows what could happen. If something _did_ happen, L would be responsible.

He _is_ responsible, right now. B wouldn’t even be back in Brooklyn if it weren’t for L.

“B…” L swallows carefully, searching for the right words. A lie won’t work. Honest words are all he has this time. “I think you should stay here when Wammy and I go back to Precision Collision.”

* * *

 _Stay here? No fucking way in hell._ “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I’m going, it’s gonna be dangerous for you and the old man.”

“That’s exactly the reason you should stay here,” Lawliet’s voice has a different quality to it, and he’s not meeting Beyond’s eyes anymore.

“Look, I’m the one that knows the gang best, you said it yourself.”

Lawliet is beginning to pack up his notes, as if the matter is closed,  “It’s my case, I call the shots.”

 _What the fuck?_ Beyond’s mind goes up to a mile a minute, each possibility worse than the last. _Did he say something to the old man? Is he lying to me about what they’re doing right now?_

“Is this because you think my dad was in Hoodwave? Do you think I was working with him, that I killed him too?”

“ _No,_ it’s not that at all,” Lawliet does look at him in the eyes then, and Beyond glares back and tilts his head. Lawliet looks away again, “I’m simply worried because Watari was compromised. We need to take as few risks as possible, stay on the safe side.”

 _Oh, so I’m a fucking_ risk _now._ The morning outside is flickering from ugly grey to vivid red, though the anger is focusing his eyes. He clenches his fist and breathes out.

“I wouldn’t call messing with a fucking gang on the safe side, Lawliet. You don’t know the first thing about getting tied up with them.” _Even if they don’t kill you, they could fuck you up bad._

* * *

B’s gaze has darkened to match his tone, and at last, L feels that he has the certainty to meet him eye to eye.

“Neither do you. You wouldn’t ever have anything to do with gang scum, remember?” He tries to keep the words gentle, but B winches just the same, eyes blinking with anger and puzzlement.

“Anyway–” L adjusts the folder of case notes under his arm, reaching for the hotel room door. “I’m going to head to Wammy’s room for a bit, as I need to phone up Roger about a few things.” He fights the urge to look over his shoulder at B’s expression, dropping the door shut before B can get any whiff of protest out.

L doesn’t feel particularly good about what he’s doing, but he’d feel worse if something happened to B. _Plus, I’ll be more focused without him. No more bungling up the case._ He nods resolutely to himself and jams the key into Wammy’s door, slipping inside and flicking on the bedside lamp.

Of course, he doesn’t really have to call Roger, so he goes over his notes again, combing through them meditatively until he more or less has them memorized backwards and forewards. He pulls out a cold case file to work on next, glancing at the clock as he does so.

Still two more hours until Wammy returns.

* * *

Beyond paces back and forth, swearing under his breath. _Fuck everything about this town, fuck Lawliet and Hoodwave and the fuckers who killed my dad._ He throws himself backwards on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Clenching and unclenching his fists.

The stucco begins to swirl into visions of faces and monsters, its sharpness blending into teeth. Beyond digs his nails deeper into his palm. _Not this. Not now._

He wrenches open the drawer and takes out the sketchbook Lawliet gave him, scribbling down the shape of teeth and bleak edges to exorcise the images creeping in to the corners of his vision. _Helps a little bit._

After a moment he scrawls an ugly, stupid-looking drawing of Lawliet in the center. _He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s getting into._ When he scrawls the detective’s name on it, he notices how the renderings of the hallucinations creep up around Lawliet, like they’re going to swallow him up instead. He crumples it up and chucks it at the door in frustration.

Then he changes his mind, flattens out the drawing and slides it under the door to Wammy’s room triumphantly. It’s only satisfying for a fraction of a second until he slumps back down on the bed, his anger snuffing out to a dull ache.

_I never even got a chance to tell him I believed him._

_That I believed me._

__L is for Liar [do not edit or repost]_  
_

* * *

 

It’s the slam of the door to the room next-door that makes L look up from the desk and notice the paper crumpled on the carpet, nearly torn from being forced through. He picks it up gingerly between his index finger and thumb and deposits it on the desktop, recognizing the cartoonish rendering of his features even without the helpful text: ‘ _L is for liar.’_

To his own surprise, he smiles to himself a little. B is hacked off at him, that’s for sure. They were supposed to be in this together – like they were when Marla Porter died – and now L has told him to stay behind. It only follows that he would feel betrayed. Still, L figures it’s better to endure an unflattering portrait than to stick around and get punched in the stomach again.

Better, too, that B be somewhere safe.

_I’ll make it up to him. I’ll get evidence against Cillian Walsh and he can finally put his father’s murder behind him._

A little tingle at the base of his brain, though, won’t let him forget that the murder of a parent isn’t just something to casually file away and move past. But surely it will be easier, won’t it, if B finally has evidence that he had nothing to do with his father’s death?

 _It’s alright, I’ll be there to help him._ He glances at the portrait a little uneasily. _If he’ll let me._

L nearly has himself convinced by the time that Wammy returns from his errands, along with a paper sack of deli sandwiches and more black and white cookies.

“I was surprised to not find you in your own hotel room.” Wammy sets the food down on the table and peels off his overcoat. “But I gathered from the atmosphere in there that you and Beyond have had a disagreement?”

“Yes.” L unwraps an egg salad sandwich and nibbles on the corner. “I want you to go to Ozzy Walsh as Russo and hint to him that Jenkins is about to bust Hoodwave, and I want B to stay here while we’re taking care of that. Now he’s upset about having to stay behind.”

Wammy’s eyebrows lift up dramatically. “Jenkins has turned on Hoodwave? You must have had quite the phone call with Clarke.”

L nods, chews, and swallows. “I did. You’d better sit down. We have a lot to plan before we head out.”

* * *

 

Beyond doesn’t eat much of the sandwich, the quiet in the room turning his anger into dread with every minute that ticks by. _Was he really telling the truth about it just being a risk? Or is there more he isn’t telling me?_ There’s a knock on the door. Beyond shoves his head into the pillow.

“We’re going to go now, B.”

“Fuck off.”

There is an awkward silence. Beyond hears the key turning and for a moment he thinks Lawliet might come in and say something, at least. _Or take me along like he should._

The front door of the other room slams. Beyond stares at the white door and steps inside. On the table is a note, Lawliet’s case notes sprawled out on the table. Beyond stares at them first. Even the call to Clarke is transcribed there.

_L’s Note [do not edit or repost]_

 

 _I guess…he wasn’t lying_ . His eyes scan over the note, which he crumples onto the table. The anger in him flickers into hollow, sick worry. _I don’t want to hit you– I just want to make sure this doesn’t fuck you up._

_I thought we were in this together._

The worse possible scenarios are running through his head right now. Beyond thinks about Lawliet running from Glen, which was all fine since they’d manage to dodge the blow, get him distracted. _What if there are a bunch of them? Does he know what to do if they have knives?_

Lawliet had never even been in a fistfight before, for all his aikido would help with that kind of shit. Beyond looks at the cash on the table, thinking about how far it is to _Precision Collision._

 _Remember what happened the last time you followed someone_ . His memories whisper, and he bites his lip bloody thinking of the way he’d dropped the knife on his father’s corpse, already cold. _Or do you remember?_

 _I remember I didn’t kill him. I’m sure_.

 _What about Marla then?_ The whisper has teeth, it’s nasty, but as he remembers Marla’s kindly smile, the way she’d looked after Robert, it doesn’t feel as ugly. Not even with the image of her bones splayed out in the stairwell

 _Marla died because we came to see her die. Would she have died otherwise?_ Beyond doesn’t know. He’s asked these questions before and usually it’s led to a night of watching monsters draw blood-paintings on the wall, unable to move without screaming. But a different thought rises from the images this time.

 _What if Lawliet can only survive if someone has his back?_ It’s a paradox, perhaps, and it makes Beyond’s head spin a little. But the conclusion makes his heart clench with certainty.

_Fuck it. I have to go after him._

* * *

 

They take the Mercedes (which L can’t help but think of as “Russo’s car,” now) to Precision Collision, parking directly across the street so that L can stay behind the tinted windows and still have a good vantage point into the open garage doors.

As Russo, Wammy adjusts the driver’s cap over his hair, the gray in his temples and mustache covered with temporary, brush-in dye, then zips up his puffy leather jacket as he makes his way into the body shop.

Having thought to bring a small pair of binoculars this time, L watches Russo and Ozzy nod at each other in greeting. Cillian and another man are working on a car, taping parts of it up for a new paint job. Not being able to hear the exchange is frustrating, so L concentrates on studying the body language. Ozzy’s expression is open and alert, but Cillian might be growing uncomfortable. He nearly trips over a hose while retrieving his equipment. As for Ozzy – L is able to pinpoint the exact moment that Russo mentions Jenkins because Ozzy’s nostrils flare and he thrusts his jaw upward, then he jams his palm against something on the wall. It must be a switch, because the body shop’s garage doors slowly start to roll down.

 _Shit!_ Tossing the binoculars aside, L reaches for the car’s door handle and spills out of the vehicle, his movements so desperate that he immediately falls to his knees, soaking his jeans in icy water. He manages to clamber to his feet and get into the alley alongside the body shop, peering his eyes just over the window that he and B looked through the other day, hoping that the glass is just cracked and dirty enough for him to go unnoticed.

The view is less than ideal, but now he can make out voices, though the exact wording is muffled. Russo’s is smooth and untroubled, the tone of a practiced hustler, and Ozzy seems frustrated. Pissed off. L presses closer to the glass and strains to make out the conversation.

“Wondered when I’d see you again, fuckwad.”

The flat, hostile voice isn’t behind the glass, it’s only a few feet away.

* * *

 

Beyond hops out of the cab a block from Precision Collision, keeping in the shadows as he catches Lawliet rolling out of the Mercedes and moving fast.

He follows carefully, but Lawliet isn’t looking around much, laser focused on the scene unfolding in the car shop. Which his why he doesn’t catch the skinny, sallow-looking teen coming in from the back alley.

 _Shit. Is that?_ Glen Watson’s name looms as he moves in on Lawliet, saying something Beyond can’t quite hear. Beyond moves in closer, heart caught in his throat.

Lawliet spins around, terrified, but Glen is already fumbling in his jacket for a small, beat-up handgun that he levels at Lawliet’s chest.

 _Fuck fuck fuck, he’s got a gun._ His dad always told him to run like hell if they had one.

 _Not an option._ Lawliet is raising his hands, face impassive. The terror is black in his grey eyes.

“You mess with the Hoodwave, you die,” Glen says it like a mantra, but his fingers are twitching on the trigger.

“Move.” Glen steps behind Lawliet, careful to keep his distance. Lawliet’s hands are shaking a little.

He’s gotta get him where they won’t hear the shot, Beyond realizes, pinned against the brick. Waiting.

 _He can’t shoot me if he can’t see me. And Lawliet’s date is safe._ Without thinking about it, as soon as Glen’s back is turned, Beyond moves faster than he’s ever moved to tackle Glen to the ground.

The slush is sharply cold as they hit the ground. Glen yells out, scrabbling for the gun but Beyond digs his teeth into his ear, shoving his head into the dirty puddle. While Glen recovers, Beyond scratches his nails into Glen’s right hand to get a hold on the weapon.

The warm metal is in his hand, safety off, he scrambles to his feet and levels it between Glen’s eyes, putting himself between the boy and Lawliet. The gun is heavy, older than he expected. Glen’s date swims above his eyes. _What would happen if I tried? Could I change it?_

Glen whimpers. The kid looks terrified now, like he might cry or start begging. It’s starting to snow, the flakes filling in the awful silence between them. Beyond breathes out.

“You remember what he said, right?” Beyond says softly, “You’re gonna die in seven years. That ain’t today.”

Beyond clicks on the safety, like his dad had showed him. Lowers the gun. Glen stares at him a moment, then he runs.

* * *

 

L is numb from the cold brick and concrete, the slush and ice sopped into his jeans, the uncaring eye of the gun, black as the bullet holes it must make. Instead of panicking his mind seems to split and detach, his senses taking in more details than they ordinarily would. Glen’s stance is bad, too loose-limbed, the gun cocked to the side a little, like he probably saw in some action movie. Pigeons warble and coo from somewhere on the roof, and the wind makes a cruel whistle down the narrow passage of the alley, making L’s cheeks smart.

And then Glen goes crashing to the ground and there’s a blur of blue and shouting. It’s B – scratching and biting like an animal. L can only stare, and by the time his mind catches up and his muscles clench, ready to move, the gun is in B’s hand and Glen staggers to his feet, running out of sight.

Neither of them manage to speak until his footsteps fade.

“Are you okay?” B’s eyes are wide in the pale mask of his face, the gun still heavy and hanging in his hand.

“Yes.” L slides up the brick wall he was previously huddled against, only now noticing the snowflakes drifting down from the sky. “Was he going to shoot me?” His tone sounds level but detached, but a closer look at B’s stricken face sends his stomach straight down to his toes. He steadies himself against the wall, then weaves and bends over, gagging once but not enough to lose his lunch, even as sparks go off in the back of his vision.

“Easy, careful!” B loops an arm around his torso, helping him stand upright.

“I’m alright,” L gasps, though that – yes, that might be another lie. But he does manage to regain his footing, leaning against the wall for support. He finds B’s hand, the one that’s not holding the gun, and takes it in his own thickly-gloved fingers. “You followed us? Guess that makes me lucky, then, too.”

* * *

 

“I’ve got your back, alright?” Beyond squeezes Lawliet’s hand back tightly, checking the numbers above his head. _Safe as ever. Gonna keep them that way._

 _“_ We should go–” Beyond tries to get his breathing under control. The adrenaline keeps his vision sharp, which is good, “Glen is fucked, no matter where he goes– but I’m not sure he won’t call for backup.”

Lawliet swallows and attempts to straighten himself up. Beyond slips his hand under Lawliet’s arm to keep him from toppling over. Though he doesn’t feel too steady himself. The snow is starting to gather on the tips of Lawliet’s black hair, and they’re both shivering now. _Not from the cold._

“Have to make sure Watari is okay,” Lawliet perches up towards the cracked window, squinting in the gloom. He exhales, looking a little relieved, “Seems like they’re just talking, though things are a little heated.”

“His date’s fine. Don’t worry,” Beyond is surprised at his own conviction, and Lawliet glances back at him with wide and terrified eyes. _I’m not sure what to believe either_. He squeezes Lawliet’s ribs, wanting to let go of the gun, but not wanting to drop it just yet either.

_Not until we’re safe._

There’s a screech of tires by the front door. Lawliet looks up sharply, fear in his eyes. Beyond slips out from under Lawliet’s arm, “Stay down, keep an eye on the old man.”

He skitters out, peering around the dumpster to catch sight of the white-and-blue boxy vehicles. Beyond bites his lip and steps back through the slush to Lawliet.

“It’s the police.”

* * *

 

L recognizes Jenkins as he ambles into the body shop, his badge clipped to his belt. There are two other plainclothes officers with him, one of whom L recognizes from the precincts photographs as Chief Inspector Clarke, who hangs back to observe while two more officers, these ones dressed in blues, rush in past him.

As Russo, Wammy steps away from Ozzy and heads to the exit when Clarke motions for him to leave, apparently taking him for an ordinary customer. Jenkins doesn’t make a move to stop him.

“I guess Jenkins got his warrant,” L says, mostly to himself. It occurs to him that Jenkins might have been building up to this raid since before L even arrived in town. “If Ozzy tries to implicate him, he’ll probably claim he’s just been working on a sting operation – if he can get Clarke to play along, that is.”

“But Clarke knows that he’s dirty, right?” B whisper is a comforting buzz in L’s ear.

“More or less.” L looks over his shoulder and out of the alley, spotting Wammy’s figure through the snow flurries. “We should get back to the car. Keep the gun hidden in your coat – Wammy’ll know what to do with it.”

They make it to the car just after Wammy does, both of them bundling into the backseat as Wammy starts the engine and blasts the heating.

“Beyond, it appears that you’ve joined us?” Wammy cranes his head to look at them.

L leans against B a little, finding warmth and comfort in the gesture. “That’s right. He has.”

“I’m glad of it.”

Wammy takes them for a drive, steering carefully through the snowfall as he explains that Ozzy was warned about the raid yesterday, that Jenkins had told him it was necessary in order to shake Clarke’s suspicions, which were mounting by the day. Ozzy, however, had expected the raid to come sometime after New Years, not today.

“Ozzy actually admitted to all this?” L asks doubtfully.

“Well, it was more what he _didn’t_ say that made the situation clear.” Wammy clears his throat delicately. “Of course, Ozzy was keen to know why Russo was so eager to insert himself into the fray, so I played the angle that I’d dealt with Jenkins in the past and knew him to be trouble. I can only hope that it sows more mistrust between them.”

Sighing, L presses his cheek to the window, the cold moisture seeping into his skin for a split second before he changes his mind and leans back into B, instead, into that warmth that’s beginning to seem so familiar.

“I just hope Clarke remembers what I told him about Cillian Walsh,” he murmurs.

* * *

 

The next few hours pass in a bit of a whirlwind. With every detail Wammy mentions about Cillian, Beyond’s thoughts drift to more details about that night– details that he’s increasingly certain about.

 _I remember when he passed me the knife._ It was a bowie knife, already crimson with blood from his father’s neck and stomach.

 _I remember that he stabbed my dad._ Straight to the stomach. He’d look surprised when he did it, then a moment later Beyond saw him wearing the face of a monster. _I remember trying stop Dad’s bleeding._

He keeps them tucked up inside for now, afraid that if he puts them to words, they’ll crumble away like dried blood into the recesses of memories he doesn’t trust. There’s much to do, beforehand– Lawliet scribbles madly in his notebook till all the details of Russo’s ‘meeting’ are down. Before Beyond can say anything, Lawliet suggests a swim in the pool. _Suits me._

 _Could use a bit of distraction_ . Besides, the water is warm, and it’s easy to bask in it and let Lawliet swim laps around him and have play splash-fights while the day floats away from him. _Some things, it’s nice to forget._

_But some things I have to remember._

It isn’t until after they return dinner at the hotel restaurant that he glances back at his rumpled jacket on the chair and realizes with a thrill that Glen’s gun is still tucked in there.

He taps Wammy on the sleeve, “Got something that Lawliet said you’d know what to do with.”

He doesn’t look at Wammy as he crosses the room for his jacket, taking out the gun and pressing it into Wammy’s hands. Lawliet looks several shades paler, his teeth worrying away at his thumb, “There was a kid in the alleyway who almost got the jump on Lawliet. This was his.”

* * *

 

Wammy casts his eyes on L, his expression making it clear that he intends to hear the full story later. “Thank you, Beyond.” He takes the gun and checks the external safety before pocketing it. “I will certainly take care of it.”

Even when he’s left for his own room, the gun safely out of reach, L doesn’t feel much relief. That unpleasant, swimmy sensation from earlier is lurching through his stomach again, quite unlike anything he’s ever felt. He _knows_ he isn’t afraid of guns, though. He’s handled them before.

“Since Wammy’s a Lord and former soldier, he knows how to hunt and shoot.” He covers up the way he feels by speaking, offering B more details as he hauls out his pajamas and changes into them. “He’s taught me how to clean and maintain a weapon, and how to load, aim, and fire. But that was with a rifle.”

A rifle, the weapon of a sportsman. The gun Glen Watson had was the sort of thing used for killing people. L can still see the dark eye of the barrel, the hostility twisted on Glen’s face.

“Did you ever shoot a gun?”

B pokes his curly head up from his suitcase, his own pajamas clutched in his hand.  “Nah – my dad showed me how to, but it’s not like there’s anywhere we could go to practice. Not that I wanted to. I guess I oughta learn, now.”

“Yeah, I guess.” L can hear the faintness in his own voice. He crawls into bed, hauling the heavy covers up to his chin. It’s too early to go to sleep, but he’s so cold – or maybe not cold, exactly, but he can’t seem to stop shaking. He peeks over the blankets just enough to catch a glimpse of B’s pale, knobbly back as he tugs his pajamas on, and wonders yet again how B actually managed to wrestle someone older like Glen to the ground.  

Maybe the _how_ doesn’t matter, though. Just like the _how_ of the dates B sees don’t matter, either. What matters is results. What matters is that B was there.

“Thanks for stopping him. ‘Specially after I hacked you off.”

* * *

Beyond sits on the bed, staring a little at Lawliet. Their fight this morning seems so far away now. But Lawliet seems far away, as well, his eyes distant and downcast into the covers,  “Course I’d go. I wasn’t gonna let you go at it alone.”

 _I know what that’s like_. Lawliet looks small, wrapped in the heavy blankets, and Beyond is struck all at once what might have happened if he had stayed. How he could have been alone again. And yeah, the dates don’t lie. But sometimes surviving is worse.

He catches lost-looking grey eyes and then eases under the blanket to wrap his arms around Lawliet’s waist, tucking his chin on his shoulder. Lawliet’s shivering a little even under the thick duvet. It scares Beyond a bit.

“Thanks for going at all,” he mumbles into Lawliet’s shoulder. His eyes are starting to prick with unexpected emotion. He hopes it isn’t too obvious in his voice, “It’s not like you would have had to if it wasn’t for me.”

Lawliet squeezes him back, a little uncertain. It’s hard to tell which of them are shaking now. But it’s Lawliet who asks, “You okay?”

“S’nothing, it’s just. He really could have shot you.”

* * *

There’s a thickness to B’s voice that sounds like dammed-up crying, but the pressure of B’s arms around L’s torso feels unexpectedly good, warm and heavy like the blankets, but better, somehow. He tilts his cheek into the top of B’s head and rests his hand on B’s shoulder, stroking it carefully.

“Yeah, I guess he could have.” His voice sounds far away, like words drifting somewhere near the ceiling. “But I’m still here, yeah? Thanks to you.”

He intends the words as a comfort, but B sniffles and L feels a tiny drop of wetness land on his collarbone, right where B’s face is buried.

L doesn’t cry these days, but he remembers the last time that he did. It was when he was four or so, and Saskia had viciously shouted at him for something he no longer remembers. He only recalls Saskia’s expression of annoyance. _“Forget about crying. Crying will never, ever work on me.”_

Nearly two years later, when she was dying but still awake and could speak, she seemed upset that he held her hand but would shed no tears.

_“I’ll probably be gone soon. Won’t you miss me?”_

_“Yes.”_ It was the truth, so he squeezed her hand harder.

She was the one to start crying then, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and running down into her ears, onto the hospital sheets.

“It’s okay.” L strokes B’s shoulder slowly and carefully. “You can cry.”

It isn’t coming out of him, but it makes him feel better, just the same.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, rereading this chapter made me tear up a little bit :')


	7. December 31, 1989

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter, and a new beginning for B and L <3

**December 31, 1989**

Beyond wakes with a violent twitch to his entire body as his knees hit the ground in a memory-turned dream.  _ Oh. Oh. _ He sits upright slowly, trying to keep the images fresh in his mind, in that order.  _ Should I wake Lawliet? _

It turns out he doesn’t have to. Lawliet mumbles slightly in his sleep, then rolls over to look at Beyond, “Nightmare?”

Beyond shakes his head, then hesitates, “No–  yes. Sort of. I’ve been meaning to tell you since yesterday– I think I remember what happened that night. It’s been coming back to me in patches and dreams. Since I saw Cillian Walsh.”

Lawliet stares at him, then smiles tentatively for a moment, “I’ll get my notebook.”

He turns on the lamp by the bedside and Beyond gathers his knees to his chest.  _ It’s so clear now. _ Beyond can see the whole scene unraveling in his mind, like he was a witness rather than a participant. He takes a deep breath.

_ Just get it out and get it right. Make it right. _

“Remember I told you about following them, then hiding in the stairwell and getting scared?”

Lawliet nods, “And then you said you weren’t sure what they spoke about, only that they got angry. 

“Yeah. I remember what they were talking about now,” he remembers the drip of the rain from yesterday, remembers how it sounded like voices that he tried to block out. But some of them were voices, “Cillian was mad about a job– something my dad did. Something about a job leak that got out. He mentioned the Netas getting involved, and that they were losing territory.”

Beyond slows down a little bit there, the damning evidence laying out in the open.  _ Well, fuck, dad. I guess it got you where you said it would get me.  _

“Pretty sure you were right about my dad being involved with the gang. I think Cillian thought my dad was selling them out,” he says into the darkness, heaviness in his voice. Lawliet squeezes his hand briefly, “My dad denied it, but he looked scared, and he told Cillian he ought to be more careful after what happened with the Porsche. Cillian didn’t like that.”

The details are flickery, even as he tries to sort out the gore-covered maws of the smokey monsters, he remembers now what really happened next, “Cillian stabbed him– in the stomach. I remember that, and that’s when I tried…I tried to stop him. I couldn’t tell who was who. Then I remember seeing my dad, bleeding out, and I was trying to stop it, or hit him, I couldn’t tell which, or who was who. ” Beyond swallowed hard, the blood on his hands turned his hands themselves into monsters. He tries to go back into the space of dreams, where he watches this happen to a stranger, “Cillian cut his throat, and that killed him, cause I saw it when his name went out. Corpses don’t have the numbers and the names.”

“Cillian gave me the knife when I stopped trying to stop the bleeding. I didn’t start moving till he’d gone. I thought if I moved, he’d kill me, or else the monsters would. Then I tried to fight back against the monsters.” 

Beyond is shaking now, the scene now almost flickering on the dark folds of the duvet cover. He hears screaming.  _ That was me.  _ Lawliet drops the pen and notebook onto the counter and tugs Beyond tentatively closer for a hug. Beyond exhales, a weight that seems to tug at the blood inside his veins. He squeezes Lawliet back gratefully. 

_ It’s alright. You know now.  _

_ And Lawliet knows too.  _

“I mostly remember what happened after that. Does that sound like it makes sense?” Beyond falters a little when he asks– it  _ feels  _ real, but then again some of the monsters he sees have felt close to real as well. And the names and the numbers shouldn’t be real.  _ But they are.  _

_ Fuck if I’ll ever know for sure.  _

* * *

 

L gives B a calm nod. “It does make sense. I can tell Clarke about Netas, too. It might lead to evidence that will implicate Cillian for good, especially if Cillian’s boots match up to the print found at the scene.”

B sags against his shoulder a little, his breath a long sigh tinged with relief. L nudges him, pulls on the end of his sleeve. “I’m glad you were able to remember. Do you feel alright?”

“Think so,” B straightens up, appears to gather himself a bit. “It’s good. Thanks…I. I couldn’t have remembered if we hadn’t done this." 

L smiles. “Well, I couldn’t have done it without you. We’re not done yet, though.”

He pulls the curtains open and looks out on downtown Brooklyn. There’s a fresh dusting of snow over the city, but the skies are clear, the sun shining through the haze. Tonight is New Year’s Eve, he realizes, and abruptly there’s a fire burning in him to close this case before 1990 rolls in. 

“I’m calling Clarke to debrief,” he announces, unpacking his computer and mobile phone. B settles on the end of the bed, watching him with bright interest.

Clarke doesn’t answer at the station, so L phones him at home, where the line is picked up by a girl who is probably only a few years younger than himself.  _ “Daddy!”  _ she screams, too close to the receiver. 

“I expect this is L?” Clarke drawls down the line. 

L gets straight to the point. “You and Jenkins raided Precision Collision yesterday.” The voice-altering program makes the words sound flat, unconcerned.

“I couldn’t shut him down without tipping my hand. But I think you’ll still be happy with the results.” 

L looks sharply at B, tapping his fingers along the edge of the desk.  _ Happy with the results?  _ “Go on,” he says carefully.

“We looked everywhere but the body shop was clean, likely just as Jenkins intended. Afterward, though, Evan McIver came down to the station with video surveillance footage from the Saratoga parking garage. Lots of Hoodwave kids with stolen vehicles moving in and out.”

“Really?” L can’t even disguise the surprise in his voice. “I thought McIver’s security cameras were broken.”

“No, he fixed the cameras not long after Miller was murdered, just slapped some black shoe-polish over the red power light. Guess he got tired of taking Hoodwave’s shit.” Clarke lets out a dark chuckle, as if he’s simply describing the plot of a particularly interesting television program. 

“What’s the status on Ozzy Walsh, Cillian Walsh, and Jenkins, then?” L holds in his breath, a foreboding sensation gripping his chest. 

“We brought Ozzy Walsh into the station last night and showed him McIver’s footage. It was pretty damning, so right now the lawyers are working out a deal with him. Looks like he’ll be willing to provide testimonial evidence that his nephew murdered Marcus Miller.”

In the corner of L’s vision, B jerks slightly and leans forward. “Testimony in exchange for what?” 

“In exchange for no charges of motor vehicle theft. He gets to keep his livelihood, so long as he’s not running a chop-shop on the side.” 

L tips back in his chair a little, knees pressed to his chest. This should be good news – Cillian Walsh will be charged with murder – but he feels far from satisfied, somehow. “Ozzy Walsh and Hoodwave are a gang organization. Do you really think they’ll live like reformed boy-scouts from here on out?” 

Clarke makes a noise under his breath. It sounds like exasperation. “Nope, but we have a lot more reason to keep tabs on them now. It’s like having a good leash on hand.”

“And what about Jenkins?” 

“Ah, yes. He’ll resign after the new year. On my strong recommendation, of course.” 

The triumph in Clarke’s voice transforms L’s dissatisfaction into cold, churning anger. “ _ I’m _ the reason McIver came to you. He flipped for  _ my _ surrogate and knew his time in Hoodwave was running out.” 

“That’s right, L. I guess I owe you a lot.” Clarke’s voice is both agreeable and condescending. “Look, I can tell you’re not completely happy with the outcome here, but I’ve been working in this city for a long time and trust me, this is as good as it gets. You can never win all the battles you want to. If I locked up Hoodwave, the Netas would expand and target civilians. It’s better to have the gangs going after each other than wrecking havoc on decent folk.” 

L meets eyes with B. “And sometimes decent folk get caught up with those gangs. Marcus Miller was one of them.” 

Clarke seems momentarily silenced, but his next words are curious, verging on sly. “You know, there’s a lot of talk about you in the NYPD, L. Your skill at solving cold cases is gonna be a legend before long, but most of us wonder how you do it. There’s some people who say that you’re just a kid. Some even think you might still be in high school.” He chuckles under his breath. “Another buddy of mine said you might be psychic. Can you believe that? But with the way you zeroed in on Cillian Walsh like that, I gotta wonder myself. You’re not psychic, are you?” 

L tilts the mobile phone in his hand and stares into it for a moment. “If believing that I’m psychic makes you feel better about your own skills, then by all means, hold on to that belief.”

And then he clicks the phone off, ending the call. 

* * *

 

Beyond shuffles over to sit across from Lawliet on the end of the bed.

“Guess that’s it then,” Beyond says quietly.

Lawliet lets out a sharp gust of breath as he packs up the equipment, “ “This wasn’t justice served. Far from it. But Clarke got what he wanted, so the case will be closed.”

Lawliet doesn’t seem happy with it, and Beyond isn’t quite sure whether to feel happy or not. He’s not quite sure what he was expecting, at the resolution of a case. Perhaps a dramatic scene more like the one in the alley, or a direct delivery of some critical piece of evidence by ‘Watari’.  _ Being a real detective isn’t that much like being Batman, I guess. _

Beyond supposes that’s a good thing.

“Yeah, case closed. I’m glad we know now, at least,” the violence of the past few months flickers through his eyes at a dizzying pace, overwhelming his vision momentarily. He lays back down on the bed, letting the unusual softness of it comfort him, bring his eyes back to reality, “And I’m glad we’re gonna be going back.”

_ Going home, _ his mind supplies. He can’t quite bring himself to say it out loud, but it does bring a small smile to his lips.  

* * *

 

B at least appears to more readily accept the outcome of the case than L, but it does little to make L feel better. Clarke essentially used him to get rid of Jenkins and close a murder case, and in the end he will be the one to take all the credit. 

What  _ does _ make L feel better is remembering the CI at Scotland Yard who’d pulled a similar maneuver on L last year, then ended up reaching out less than a month later, looking for more help. It’s a long game that L is playing, making himself indispensable, and then into a true, outside authority. This isn’t the last he’s heard from Clarke and the NYDP. That much he’s sure of. 

When Wammy shows up in their room L fills him in as quickly as possible, trying not to let his frustrations show too much. He was able to prove that B was no murderer, at least, and that’s what really matters. That’s what brought them here in the first place. The smile that B gives him makes him sure of it. 

“I suppose our work here is done, then,” Wammy says, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “I can see about booking a flight in the next day or two, if you both feel ready to return?” 

L meets B’s gaze and nods. “Yeah. We’re ready to go back.” 

Meanwhile, it’s still the day of New Year’s Eve. Wammy cheerfully announces that he’s managed to book a two-bedroom suite at a hotel so near Times Square that its rooftop terrace has a fantastic view of the ball drop. 

“That sounds good.” L carefully folds up his tee-shirts and stacks them into his suitcase, untangling B’s blue sun-hat from the mix and tossing it over to him. “Have you been to Times Square on New Years Eve before? I bet its a mad house.” 

“Never been, nah. Watched it on TV a couple times, but it felt like a bit of a tourist thing. And it’s not like my parents were gonna take me,” he pulls on the pretty coat, somewhat missing Robert’s bomber jacket by now.  _ But it’s not like I’ll be hiding much longer _ , “It’ll be cool to see it though.”

_ Especially with a friend. _

In afternoon, Wammy took them on a walk about Central Park. It was fun, admittedly, being a tourist and not having to look over his shoulder too often. The clouds broke and the sun glittered over the snow, and though it was crowded, people and their deaths didn’t look quite as bad today.  _ No one’s dying that soon, today _ .

Lawliet rhymed off interesting stories and crimes that had taken place there over time, and Beyond showed him a few out-of-the-way corners that he’d found the few times he’d explored there.

Wammy lags behind them, mostly observing them with a smile. But Beyond can’t help but wonder what the old man is thinking.  _ Especially after I handed him a gun last night _ . They make a stopover at a dusty old bookstore called  _ Argosy _ , where Lawliet is curious about old maps of the city’s underground. Beyond hangs by him to look at the thick old tomes, but catches Wammy looking at the globes and wanders off a bit, studying him.

_ I guess I should say something. _

“Sorry about the gun last night,” Beyond mumbles, staring at the parchment-colored eighteenth-century globe that Wammy is eyeing.  _ Sorry that Lawliet almost got hurt. _ Wammy simply nods seriously.

“No need to apologize, it’s all taken care of. I will remind you that carrying weapons is against the rules in Winchester, though there are classes you can take if it’s within your interest. I run a few of them.”

Beyond’s eyes widen, “No kidding, you?”

Wammy chuckles slightly, “You know I wouldn’t have taken on the role of ‘Russo’ if I didn’t have at least a few of the requisite skills.”

“It’s really okay for me to go back with you, too?” The fear struck him all at once, reminded that Lawliet was not the only one who could make decisions.  _ And he’s just a kid too. _ Clarke had made that limitation clear.

“You know Lars is very keen for you to have a place at Wammy’s, Beyond. As am I,” Wammy smiles quite freely, seeming at ease in the conversation in spite of the tension, “It might have escaped your attentions at Wammy’s, but he doesn’t befriend people easily. So I think he’s seen something particularly special in you.”

_ More than you know. _ Beyond bites his tongue just as Lawliet rejoins them, two heavy books in his hand. He smiles at Beyond, looking him in the eyes with earnest eagerness. Beyond smiles back.  _ He knows what I can do. But he can do some good with it. _

* * *

 

The hotel Wammy’s found for them is so close to Times Square that they can both hear and see the crowd from the rooftop terrace. Plenty of people have gathered at the bar and restaurant to take in the sight, most of them adults who are dressed in their best and swilling champagne. B and L find their own viewing spot on the other side of the large, industrial air-conditioners, both of them keeping warm with the paper cups of hot chocolate that Wammy ordered for them. 

“I didn’t expect so many people. I guess they’re all excited for a fresh start,” L murmurs as he gazes out at the crowd, rendered tiny by distance and height. B is quiet beside him, sipping at his drink, his eyebrows furrowed carefully together. 

_ Sometimes… a fresh start isn’t so bad. _

L knocks his sneaker against B’s. “Thanks for all your help on the case, by the way. You’ll help me on the next one, won’t you?” 

B swallows, eyes wide and eager. “’Course I will!” 

Smiling contentedly, L leans back against the metal drum of the air-conditioner, his shoulder plugged just beneath B’s warm left arm. He’s grateful not just for the help, but the company, too. 

“What did they do back in Winchester to celebrate?” B asks, sketching random shapes into the side of his cup. “It’s been 1990 for lots of hours there.” 

“It’s not as much of a spectacle as Christmas, but they do set off fireworks in the village.” L gives B a small, crooked smile. “Anyway, you’ll find out next year.” 

B licks whipped cream foam off his upper-lip and grins. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” 

The buzz in the crowd is getting louder, and sure enough, a quick check of L’s watch shows that it’s less than a minute away from midnight. “Almost time.” He shows the watch-face to B. “The end of a decade… and the start of a new one.” 

Together, they lean into the rooftop railing and feel the cold wind bite at their cheeks as they join in with the countdown below.  

_ five, four, three, two… _

_  
_ A New Year Together _ [do not edit or repost] _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you were inclined to leave a comment, that truly would be the best Christmas/New Year's gift :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All is Calm, All is Bright](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8926279) by [IndigoJones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoJones/pseuds/IndigoJones), [sybilius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius)




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